CONCERN over bad weather on the day of next month’s General Election has led to one councillor calling on people to register for a postal vote.

Councillor Norman Hampshire, depute leader of East Lothian Council, made the call during a meeting of councillors in Haddington last Tuesday, ahead of a General Election being approved for December 12.

He urged council officers to launch a drive to make sure more residents were able to vote by post amid fears people could find themselves unable to reach local polling stations if the weather took a turn for the worse.

Mr Hampshire said: “We need to encourage as many people as possible to take out a postal vote because we do not know what the weather is going to be like. We need to make sure we do not disenfranchise anybody. I want the council to do what it can to increase the number of people with postal votes.”

Two new polling stations were also confirmed by councillors, who gave the green light to Musselburgh Rugby Club replacing the closed Stoneyhill Community Centre in the town as a polling station and the new Whitecraig Community Centre, due to open in the village this month, also becoming a venue.

In the 2017 General Election, East Lothian Council issued more than 17,000 postal votes, with 14,577 returned. The total number of votes cast in the constituency was 55,878.

Mr Hampshire highlighted that registering for a postal vote did not mean people had to use it but gave them an option if the weather proved difficult.

There has not been a General Election in December in the UK since before universal suffrage was given to all adults over the age of 21 in 1928.

The last December election was on December 6, 1923. On that occasion, the Conservatives lost their majority and, after they lost a vote of no confidence one month later, Ramsay MacDonald was appointed as the first Labour Prime Minister.