COASTAL car park charges have created “a lot of antagonism” in a village amid claims the council has failed to live up to investment promises.

Conservative councillor Jeremy Findlay (pictured), who represents the North Berwick Coastal ward, said that he could not walk down the street in his home village of Gullane without “getting it” from his constituents over the charges.

Mr Findlay told a meeting of the local authority’s policy and performance review committee that the public perception of the scheme, which was introduced in 2015, was that no improvements had been carried out.

He said: “The public perception in my area is that the promises made to the people of Gullane have not been met. There is a lot of antagonism in my area about the whole policy – I get it from them when I walk down the street.”

Mr Findlay said that the charging scheme, introduced across 10 of the council’s coastal car parks, was not, in his view, a success, and that he remained opposed to it.

The committee had heard that East Lothian Council used £55,000 of funds raised from the charges to help fund the private parking wardens which were introduced two years ago in the county.

Officials had argued the business case for decriminalising car parking in the town centres and introducing the wardens had been required to show it would not run at a loss.

The committee was told that the local authority paid NSL, which provides the wardens, over £400,000 for the service and parking fines raised about £340,000.

However, officials confirmed that the Scottish Government had relaxed the rules and local authorities could run the parking warden scheme at a loss.

But they said that removing the funds from coastal car park charges would mean the money would have to be found elsewhere.

Income from the coastal car parking charges has failed to meet initial estimates and the net income for the current financial year is predicted to be £201,000.

The council has budgeted £300,000 revenue in its budget from the scheme, despite it failing to meet that target in any year since its introduction.

It has also set aside £150,000 for improvements at the car parks.