WE LIVE in a county whose quality of life is the envy of most others – especially those who moved here from traffic-choked cities.

Us natives were born here. We had quaint villages, bucolic countryside, stunning coastline and easy access to Scotland’s capital as a birthright. But who is minding our brilliant birthright?

In the space of a lifetime, one in three of our residents moved here – and they are all welcome for having the taste to do so. But one look at the south side of Tranent or Dunbar and any competent town planner would scratch his head in disbelief at the haphazard manner in which our new neighbours have been accommodated.

Both towns had over 500 pleasant but uniform houses built, with no effort made to make the town centre accessible, and the only infrastructure provided was a supermarket. No wonder the residents all pile into their cars and disappear to the malls of Edinburgh while high streets struggle.

The same suburban sprawl is now bloating Wallyford and North Berwick.

But where is the provision of business centres to give new residents an option besides crowding the trains even more?

New houses are needed and developers’ deep pockets are a sensible way to fund many of them. But planning vibrant and desirable communities involves a lot more than simply circling on a map which field is next for the chop.

The present planning ‘system’ is a civic bar brawl between a Scottish Government fixated on numbers and developers keen to turn the biggest buck. Communities are not even given the right of appeal.

So it may be unfair to point the finger at East Lothian Council planning department for displaying neither vision nor backbone. They make no attempt to provide roads, trains, surgeries, sewage, parking, offices, jobs, design, guidelines or settlement statements that could be defence lines against another 150 four-bedroom homes that no local can afford. They seem happier arguing over wooden sash windows, why harling looks fine next to ashlar stone or holding fast to business classifications a half-century out of date.

Readers are encouraged to respond to the current Government consultation on planning to plead for a more coherent and locally directed approach. But, until then, the buck stops with them and the sooner they emerge from their paper-shuffling palace and start channelling Frank Tindall, the sooner we’ll have a chance to secure what makes our county so desirable in the first place.