Wednesday March 11th 2026
Cost of disabled transport under review in East Lothian
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Plans to replace a daily charge for disabled transport with a new flat rate fee of £780 a year for users were withdrawn from a meeting of East Lothian councillors this week.
Under the proposals due to go before the council’s Labour administration cabinet, officers proposed asking adults who use social care transport to pay a flat £15 weekly fee instead of £2.50 per journey, with plans to take the payment over 12 monthly payments each year.
However at the meeting this week the council’s chief executive said the report had been removed from the agenda.
Laurence Rockey told councillors the item had been withdrawn “in order to reconfirm the position in regard to consultation”.
He added: “I can confirm it will be brought back to a future meeting of the cabinet.”
The report had been due to ask councillors to approve the new charges which it said only amounted to just over seven per cent of the estimated £1.235million the service cost the council each year.
It said around 116 adults used the service with the majority using it to access day support usually five days a week, but it said the previous decision to charge £2.50 per journey had proved ‘challenging’ due to “data availability and reliability regarding service usage” and had, as yet, not been implemented.
It argues a new weekly rate charged to all users across the year would be easier to administrate adding people who use fewer than six journey a week will be advised to fund their own transport.
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