Monday February 9th 2026
Newly installed parking meter on the North Berwick high street
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
With the East Lothian Council introducing parking measures that will come into effect on Monday 16 March which aims ‘to make it easier for people to access businesses and amenities’ and increase footfall, amongst local high street businesses there is a sense of anger with many worried that the new restrictions will extremely affect business in the town.
Despite the parking management scheme being approved at a meeting of East Lothian Council in December 2024 following a public consultation, a petition that began in the beginning of this year calling on the council to ‘pause’ its plans and allow for a ‘holistic, rigorous and publicly accessible overarching impact review’ to take place saw over 7000 of people signing as both businesses and locals fear the restrictions could ‘crash the high street’.
Fighting against the proposed plans has been explained as a 10 year process with the majority of high street businesses coming together to oppose the council.
One business owner Moya Anderson, who co-owns Anderson’s Quality Butchers on the high street explained that there is a sense of nervousness in her business, worried that the parking could heavily affect footfall.
She explained: “We are all a little nervous about it because the public perception is that it’s going to close the high street and all businesses are going to close causing a complete disaster.
“I want to be more optimistic and hope that the council is correct but it’s like bashing your head against a brick wall, the council doesn’t want to know.
“We have taken part in consultations for the last 10 years and the feedback has been largely ignored. We have taken part in a petition that went to John Muir House that was also ignored, we have written to our councillors, we have spoken to our MSPs. The local Labour Councillor isn’t a car driver, she doesn’t have an issue.”
Describing the situation as ‘quite depressing’, Moya explained that she and her staff are not local and so far attempting to get a parking permit hasn’t been possible, causing fear of what will happen to their essential transport vans that currently park at the back of the shop.
Moya Anderson outside her co-owned business, Anderson's Quality Butcher, on North Berwick High Street
“So there’s lots of issues about people who live or work on the high street, we are a business owner but not residents. We have a staff of about 10 people, we already car share but it isn’t possible to use public transport because we don’t live on bus routes. We have older members of staff who won’t be able to walk from the suggested parking spaces.”
The East Lothian Council, in the process of planning the restrictions, suggested that the town’s workers could use the car park at the rugby club but with the popularity of North Berwick, which sees both locals and visitors filling the high street, the suggestion could cause issues.
Moira added: “Nobody has said ‘oh well you are a business owner, you will be able to get a permit’. I don’t know where we are going to park our work vans, it’s got lots of really negative impacts for people who work in the town.”
On North Berwick’s High Street, there will be free parking for up to 45 minutes. Parking for up to 75 minutes will cost £1 while there will be a £2 charge for parking up to a maximum of 90 minutes to help incentivise the turnover of parking spaces.
The charges on High Street will apply from 10am to 4pm Monday to Saturday. In other locations within the town’s Controlled Parking Zones, parking will cost 50p for 30 minutes.
Another business owner, Bev Gilhooley who owns pet shop Barker and Bone, said that she believes it could ‘quite literally crash the high street in a couple years’, explaining that since Covid running a business has become more and more challenging.
Bev Gilhooley outside her pet store, Barker and Bone, on North Berwick High Street
“It’s getting harder and harder to actually turn a profit”, she explained, “It couldn’t be worse timing because since Covid, all the prices keep going up and up and the profit margins, especially in the pet industry, have got smaller and smaller.
“The biggest problem is that North Berwick is a heavily residential area, so they’ve tried to carve it all up into permit holders only and then given all the meters 90 minutes. The reason it’s such a successful high street, which is unheard of nowadays, is because we get so many day trippers from as far as Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh and even the outlying villages. If you think you’re going to travel all that way on a Sunday and get 90 minutes, why would you bother.”
Bev added: “The council threw out our petition and ignored us. The consultations are a lie. The council pretends they are doing a consultation then they hear everyone’s against it and they go ahead anyway. Personally, I am not impressed with the local politicians, none of them came into a shop and asked a business or spoke to anyone and they all voted for it.”
A council spokesperson told the Midlothian View that the ‘measures are designed to address local challenges such as a lack of parking spaces during busy period’, but Moya Anderson from the high street butcher explained that she believes the measures are coming into place due to a precedented view from the council that people need to be more active, wanting cars out of town centres.
The East Lothian Council spokesperson explained: “Following significant public consultation and engagement, including with business owners, proposals to better manage North Berwick’s town centre parking were approved at a Council meeting in December 2024 and work is ongoing to deliver them.
“These measures are designed to address local challenges such as a lack of parking spaces during busy periods. By increasing the turnover of spaces, we aim to make it easier for people to access businesses and amenities and hope to see greater footfall as a result.
“In addition, the measures are intended to provide better parking enforcement and enhanced road safety while encouraging sustainable travel.”
Despite the measures coming into action at the beginning of March, parking meters have already been installed throughout the town centre, displaying information on when the restrictions will come into place.
Speaking about the North Berwick restrictions, Councillor John McMillan, spokesperson for economic development and tourism, said that the measures are aimed at encouraging active travel.
He said: “Most council areas in Scotland already have a form of town centre parking charges and we expect a range of benefits to be delivered by their introduction in North Berwick, including improved road safety through better enforcement of unsafe and illegal parking.
“By increasing the turnover of spaces and providing easier access for shopping, we hope to see greater footfall within local businesses too.
“These parking measures are also aimed at encouraging more people to adopt active travel options, improving their health and well-being while playing a part in tackling climate change.”
Another business owner, Meg Maitland, who owns a clothing retailer named after herself in North Berwick and Berwick-upon-Tweed explained that she fears that her North Berwick store will be effected similar to how her other store was after the coastal English town began parking restrictions that ‘decimated the town.’.
Meg Maitland outside her clothing store on North Berwick High Street
Meg explained: “I’ve been a clothing retailer for 40 years and I’ve got experience of this as this was introduced in Berwick-upon-Tweed and was actually changed more than 10 years ago because it didn’t work and it decimated the town. My experience with this isn’t great.
“I know what can happen and what will happen is that people will just not pay to park, they will get into their cars and drive up to Fort Kinnaird where parking is free. We don’t need it here and we have all been in business long enough to know that you need to make it easy for people to visit your store. People don’t want to pay for parking to go have a cup of coffee, so they just won’t go.”
Meg explained that within the North Berwick Business Association and the Community Council, they have all been fighting against the measures for years.
She added: “All the councillors who we elected to do what we would want them to do for the good of the town, voted to bring it in which is quite shocking really. From a commercial point of view it’s pretty disastrous for the town. You have to really work to get people to come and visit your business and this is just a barrier being put up.”
Meg also explained that the parking won’t only cause issues for customers but also her staff with many driving in to work, explaining that workers in the town may not be able to afford the daily parking charge.
“We’ve been told we can use the rugby club car park but there isn’t enough space for 500 people up there, otherwise workers will be faced with around £5 a day which they can’t afford.”
Despite the parking management scheme being approved following a public consultation, Meg explained that the council didn’t take enough care in consulting with local businesses, describing the ‘near a million pounds in consultancy fees’ as a waste.
Under the council’s Traffic Regulation Order (TRO), which was published on Monday 12 January, the measures will be legally applicable from 2 March although their enforcement will not commence until Monday 16 March. The council explained that this aims to allow a suitable period of time for permits to be purchased online.
The details of the permit system and application process is to be announced in the coming weeks.
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