AS LOCAL area commander for East Lothian, I continue to be genuinely impressed with the community’s co-operation across the region. This ranges from attending community meetings, to feedback and response to ongoing investigations.

This level of engagement, as you know, is crucial to delivering on the priorities that matter to everyone and can only be achieved with your assistance. I would encourage you to continue to support us in this aim.

We will not become complacent in our efforts to tackle all manner of criminal activity within East Lothian, including housebreaking, anti-social behaviour, substance misuse and violence. We will continue to work alongside our partner agencies to protect vulnerable people from harm and make our roads safer.

Our approach in East Lothian is clearly based on prevention and collaboration to ensure the most efficient and effective service delivery. The East Lothian Local Policing Plan contains the detail of the issues our communities are concerned about and want us to address to keep our communities safe. All of the priorities identified by our communities are being listened to and addressed, thanks to your ongoing support.

In terms of incidents over the last week, a 29-year-old man has been charged with fire-raising at a block of flats in Haddington and appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court. Incidents like this are fortunately rare; however, the potential for injury to the public and damage to property is obvious.

We treat such matters extremely seriously and we are continuing to investigate other similar incidents which have happened recently in the area. On this occasion, the prompt action of the residents, fire service and police officers at the scene led to the detention of the local man.

I have also issued an appeal for information after an attempted armed robbery in Ormiston on Sunday at the Co-operative store on Main Street at about 10.15pm, when a man discharged an air weapon and threatened staff.

Thankfully, no one was seriously injured but the discharge of any weapon during the course of a crime is an extremely serious matter, though fortunately they do not happen all that often. We are following various lines of inquiry to trace the individual responsible and anyone with information is asked to contact us as soon as possible.

These types of crimes are thankfully rare in East Lothian and through your support we will ensure ‘Keeping People Safe’ is at the heart of everything we do.

Anyone with information that may help with our investigations is asked to contact police on 101 or, alternatively, the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.