East Lothian Courier | News | County 'a safe, greener place'

Thursday, 20th November, 2008

Published: Thursday, 8th November, 2007 09:30

County 'a safe, greener place'

EAST LOTHIAN is a safer and greener place to live – if you can find an affordable property.

The local authority’s Corporate Performance Indicators, covering the financial year 2006/07 when the previous Labour administration was in charge, reveals progress in the fight against drugs, as well as a significant fall in the number of serious injuries and fatalities on the county’s roads.

But the figures, presented to the new council by policy officer Andrew Strickland, also showed that the previous local authority was well behind with its affordable house-building programme.

Of the 60 targets, 38 were achieved or were on target, 13 had not been achieved or were not on target, while statistics for eight others were unknown or the information was unattainable, and one target had been been changed.

The former Labour administration agreed six “core priorities” in April 2006.

Those were: increase supply of affordable housing; keeping a clean and green environment; building safer communities; raising educational attainment; encouraging enterprise and skills; and promoting healthy living/improving social care.

These were later expanded to form 60 more detailed targets.

Labour’s affordable housing programme, which supported the building of 200 homes by 2007, fell well short of target with only 67 homes built in the last calendar year.

Green boost

Pass marks, though, have been awarded for environmental projects, including waste recycling and composting – now at record levels.

Under the safer communities umbrella, the council also scored well last year, with an achieved reduction in supply and demand for, and harm caused by, drugs. Cases of possession with intent to supply in East Lothian fell by around 20 per cent during last year.

The council was also on target to achieve a 40 per cent drop in fatalities and serious injuries in road incidents by 2010.

An annual average of 55 people were killed or seriously injured on local roads between 1994 and 1998. This was down to 36 in 2006 – a drop of 34.5 per cent.

Also on track was the goal to half the number of children killed or seriously injured in road accidents. Between 1994 and 1998 the average annual casualty figure was nine. In 2006, the figure was down to five – a drop of 44 per cent.

However, the council was behind in its target of reducing incidents of vandalism by 10 per cent by next year.

Figures for economic growth saw a failure to achieve 150 new business starts in 2006/07, with just 113 achieved compared with 160 in 2005/06.

Healthwise, the council had been behind target in increasing the numbers of older people in receipt of intensive care at home to enable them to remain in the community, and in reducing the number of delayed discharges in short stay hospital beds.

It was on target, though, to reduce the number of adult smokers to 22 per cent by 2010.

Councillors on the new SNP/Lib-Dem-led authority agreed to accept Mr Strickland’s report, and to use the information provided to review the new council’s performance in regard to its core priorities.

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