Friday September 5th 2025
East Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
A new council committee set up to oversee the use of £13 million of community funds heard its first application behind closed doors less than ten minutes after getting underway today.
East Lothian Council’s new Common Good Committee was approved by elected members in July and brings together four individual town funds which had seen grants approved by their local ward councillors into one group.
But while the committee itself was held in public and webcast live on the council’s website, members decided to move into private before discussing the only application on the agenda.
The application from The Pantry, in Musselburgh, for a grant of £1,051.66 towards opening a second base in Newbigging in the town was heard in private under part of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 which can exclude the public if it relates to “information concerning the financial or business affairs of any particular person other than the Authority”
Common Good funds are overseen by East Lothian Council for Dunbar, North Berwick, Haddington and Musselburgh, the latter of which has the largest balance by far at an estimated £9 million.
The committee opened its first meeting with Provost Councillor John McMillan chairing it in the Town House in Haddington with minutes from the last individual fund committee meetings approved by local councillors.
A financial report on the current state of the four funds was presented to the committee outlining funds spent already this year from their agreed annual budgets.
It revealed that Dunbar had started in April with a £4,000 budget for grants and £5,000 budget for repairs and maintenance and, as of August, had spent £3,250 on grants and £6,869 on repair and maintenance.
In Haddington a grants budget of £10,000 had seen £4,000 spent in the first part of the year with a repairs budget of £12,000 remaining untouched.
Musselburgh’s grant budget of £112,000 had seen £40,890 handed out by August with £15,877 of its repair and maintenance budget of £70,000 spent and North Berwick had spent £4,000 of its £10,000 grant budget and £110 of its £10,000 repairs budget over the same period.
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