Cockenzie masterplan's views on cruise terminal 'disappointing'

Douglas Proudfoot, East Lothian Council’s head of development, said it was clear that more research into feasibility would need to be carried out after the draft plan, drawn up by consultants, appeared to rule out a cruise terminal.

He told Prestonpans Community Council that engineering reports were required to establish once and for all what level of port activity was possible before decisions were made.

Mr Proudfoot said: “I am a bit disappointed there has not been a clear outcome in and around cruise development.

“This is a real issue that needs to be resolved. Further work needs to be done if the cruise and port-related propositions are to be viable.”

His comments came after community councillors criticised the consultants’ views that the terminal would require too much land to operate and a level of investment it was unlikely to attract.

Calum Miller told Mr Proudfoot, who attended a meeting of the group along with head of planning Iain McFarlane, that there were concerns about the lack of supporting documents or accountability over information presented in the masterplan for the site.

He said: “Statements are made, such as those referring to the cruise terminal, with no notification of where the supporting evidence came from or who is stating it.

“No one has ownership of this document and it is going to influence future decisions for this site.”

But Mr Proudfoot insisted the draft masterplan was only a vision statement, not an “influential document”.

And he insisted that any council-backed plan remained reliant on ScottishPower selling the land to the local authority, which is still under negotiation.

Community council chairman Brian Weddell called for the Scottish Government and other interested parties to carry out port engineering studies of the site and cruise market research to determine whether it was viable.

Mr Proudfoot told them: “We need to do much more work to determine the way forward here.”