A RINGROAD around Tranent has been mooted by Tranent and Elphinstone Community Council to help solve the town’s traffic problems.

It is not the first time that the idea of a road taking traffic around rather than through the town has been raised as a solution to ease the growing congestion problem on Tranent High Street.

Last month, East Lothian Council chief executive Angela Leitch confirmed that the local authority was aware that plans for such a road had been spoken about.

Councillor Colin McGinn, ward member, said that plans for a ringroad had been on his agenda for years.

At the meeting, he said: “[A new] bypass is the option that we all want and have all wanted for years.

“That’s been my agenda for an awful long time.

“We could tie it in with the development down at Blindwells, down at Ormiston, and take it further out, as opposed to the development at Windygoul. I think that’s ideally what we want over time and it would solve the issues.”

Speaking to the Courier, he confirmed that an area of land had been identified for an eastern bypass in the council’s Local Development Plan.

“There’s land safeguarded for a potential eastern bypass. It’s been identified that that land is available,” he said.

“The traffic is increasing, you would be a fool if you didn’t see that. The need’s going to be increasing but I wouldn’t say it’s desperate yet.”

However, Mr McGinn did acknowledge that plans were in very early stages, adding: “There’s no line drawn on the paper to say ‘it’s going here’.”

The issue was raised as the community council plans to object to the proposed housing development at Windygoul South until it feels the proper infrastructure is in place.

Robert McNeill, community council member, said: “The ringroad would hopefully go from the Ormiston road right across to the Macmerry road, then on to Bankton.

“That would take a considerable amount of cars away from Tranent High Street.”

He added: “We have had this conversation for years and years. We have taken that position because as a community council we are just really fed up. There’s not a meeting that goes by when parking and traffic isn’t mentioned in some form.”

The development proposed at Windygoul South would add 750 homes to the south side of Tranent, with those cars having to travel through Tranent High Street to get to the A1 and Edinburgh.

“I think it would be extremely bad,” Mr McNeill added, “with almost 1,000 homes being built with an average of two cars per household. At one stage my house had three cars, and the reality is some families now have four or five.

“We don’t have a train station, so there’s people taking their cars down the road to get to the nearest station. The environmental pollution in Tranent will get so much worse. We hope the important people will take notice but I’m not hopeful. It does worry us what the future will bring.”

A council spokesperson said: “Mention has been made of a possible new road to the south-east of Tranent to link up new and planned homes around Elphinstone, Ormiston, Pencaitland. However, these are not actual plans and the first stage of any such proposal will be commissioning of a feasibility study and this hasn’t been requested yet.”