AN APPEAL has been lodged over controversial proposals for an anaerobic digester.

East Lothian Council’s planning committee met earlier this month in a specially arranged meeting, which attracted nearly 200 members of the public to Haddington’s Corn Exchange.

J Haig Hamilton & Sons’ proposals would have seen a plant built on just under two hectares with a promise of taking crops from local farmers, using them to create renewable electricity and gas, and returning to the farms the by-products of liquid fertiliser and soil conditioner.

The scheme, for land at Standalane, near Ballencrieff, split the councillors on the committee, with 10 eventually voting to reject it and six in favour. Now the issue has been passed on to the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA), with documents received on Monday.

Neil Sutherland, of Wardell Armstrong, speaking on behalf of Haig Hamilton and Sons, said: “This decision has been based on a number of very important factors. Firstly, there was very strong support for the proposals from council officers, and indeed strong support across the board from all the relevant council departments. The view taken by officers was based on their assessment of strong council and Scottish Government policy support for both farming and renewable energy.

“In addition, there were no objections to the proposals from the main statutory consultees, which also gives us good reason to believe that our case is robust.”

Mr Sutherland said the site had been “very carefully chosen” as “the only available and developable site where a connection can be made to the gas grid”. He added: “The site can also be carefully screened in a way that has not been possible on many other development sites in East Lothian, and in terms of road transport, the council’s own transport official pointed out at the meeting that the proposals would actually improve road safety.

“For all these compelling reasons, we believe that the Standalane development is exactly the right proposal in the right location.”

Councillors heard from a number of people at the meeting who were against the proposals, including No Gas Works East Lothian.

Speaking to the Courier on Tuesday evening, a spokesman for the group said: “We are disappointed if not entirely surprised that an appeal has been made to the DPEA at the Scottish Government. We were pleased and reassured that East Lothian Council listened to the concerns of many objectors, democratically voting to refuse planning permission for this highly controversial application on solid policy grounds. We will continue to do everything in our power to campaign for this decision being upheld.”