Congratulations on your coverage of East Lothian Council’s Main Issues Report: it shows the power of editing given that the report with appendices runs to several thousand pages.

Your headline, ‘West best for housing explosion’ sums up the biggest issue: an explosion of demand for houses.

The numbers are even more dramatic when considered in terms of people. In parallel with the Main Issues Report, work is already underway on the next version of a South East of Scotland Strategic Development Plan.

A consultation took place earlier this year on a new version of its demand for houses (our MIR is based on the previous version).

It highlights 33 per cent growth in the population of East Lothian in the period to 2032, including 65 per cent growth in the population between the ages of 65 and 79.

The demand for houses is stated as being substantially greater in this new version.

If this is true it must be a crisis in the making, threatening to change the character of large areas of East Lothian and, in some cases, the basis of a booming tourist industry.

It was clear at the council meeting that nobody should assume that councillors will accept any of the Main Issues Report proposals when it comes to the eventual Local Development Plan.

The report is entirely the work of planning officials based on their planning logic and prejudice. It is essential that people across the length and breadth of East Lothian engage in the consultation process both now and later when the draft plan has been produced, making their views very clear. At least that can make the outcome more democratic.

As a related issue, the council has a lot of explaining to do on why it seems to be the last area of Scotland to be publishing its Main Issues Report.

It risks there being a long period when our eventual Local Development Plan is based on a South East of Scotland Strategic Development Plan first agreed in 2013 and superseded by a new version based on greater housing demand figures.

This is exactly what leads to developers being able to make successful appeals to ministers on the basis of our local development plan being out of date, rendering the democratic views of local people irrelevant.

Our council has already been repeatedly caught out this way on its 2008 Local Plan. This time may be far worse.

Martin White Craighead Cottage West Fenton