MORE than £1 million extra is being spent on ensuring schools throughout East Lothian are spotless in the fight against the coronavirus.

Rigorous cleaning and sanitising procedures are in place at the county’s nurseries and primary schools in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.

The additional measures and additional cost have added to the deficit East Lothian Council is facing in meeting its budget.

Councillor Shamin Akhtar, the local authority’s spokeswoman for education and children’s wellbeing and a Haddington and Lammermuir ward member, highlighted the increasing figures to Haddington’s community council meeting last week.

She said: “The extra cleaning in schools, that amounted to £1.2 million.

“Home to school travel and having to support buses for secondary and primary school pupils was another £1.7 million.

“Even just cleaning in schools, that was increased by 20 per cent.”

The rising costs were discussed by East Lothian Council last month during a financial report outlining the first quarter of the new financial year.

Without the additional costs, a budget of £3,259,700 is set aside for “education cleaning and janitorial costs” the schools.

Currently, East Lothian Council is facing a deficit of more than £7 million, with much of the seven-figure sum stemming from emergency measures taken during the coronavirus crisis.

That figure could further increase as measures remain in place in the battle against the global pandemic.

Ms Akhtar called on the Scottish Government to provide funding to help cover the cost.

She said: “We are doing everything we can.

“We need a bit of support as well.”

Already, a letter has been sent by the Labour councillor, along with EIS (Educational Institute of Scotland), SSTA (Secondary School Teachers’ Association) and Unison to John Swinney MSP, education and skills minister, in a bid to find money to help cover the costs.

Ms Akhtar said: “It is quite a challenging scenario for us.

“We are a growing county, the second fastest growing in Scotland.”