MORE than 70 per cent of complaints received by East Lothian Council between October and December last year related to how the local authority dealt with Scottish Enterprise’s proposal for a marine energy park at Cockenzie.

Plans for a giant energy park at the former Cockenzie Power Station were scrapped at the end of March.

At that time, Scottish Enterprise confirmed it was no longer proceeding with its ambitious plans, saying the time was not right.

On Tuesday, Sarah Bogunovic, customer feedback manager at East Lothian Council, gave councillors at the policy and performance review committee meeting an overview of the number of complaints the local authority had received in recent months.

In total, the local authority received 598 complaints between October and December 2014, with no fewer than 421 related to the controversial proposals.

In comparison, between April and June last year there were only 214 complaints and from July to September the figure was only marginally more at 233.

Stage one complaints are ones dealt with at the point of service within five working days; while stage two complaints are ones which are acknowledged within three working days, before being investigated and responded to within 20 working days.

She said: “There was a significant increase in the number of stage two complaints received between October and December 2014.

“This was due to a single issue campaign in the county relating to the proposal for a marine energy park at the Cockenzie Power Station site and the role of East Lothian Council in this matter.

“Four-hundred-and-twenty-one individual complaints were received about this issue.” Mrs Bogunovic told members there was a decrease in complaints from April 2012 to the end of last year – if all the Cockenzie complaints were treated as a single issue.

Councillor David Berry acknowledged it could be viewed that the sheer number of Cockenzie complaints “skewed” the figures.

If counted as individual complaints, it meant there was a 53 per cent increase compared to the same time last year.

Mr Berry was pleased to see the number of complaints going down – when the energy park was treated as one issue – and added: “Staff seem to be doing a bang up job in dealing with the public. The number of cases of me getting stopped in the street and poked in the chest seems to have gone down.”