TWENTY-EIGHT council homes in the centre of Tranent have been given the green light.

Plans for 24 flats and four houses on the site of the former Fa’side Lodge Care Home, off the town’s Elder Court, were approved by East Lothian Council’s planning department at the end of last month.

Councillor Colin McGinn, who represents the town, was delighted to see the site being utilised and was keen to see the project move forward.

He said: “For a long time, it is an area we wanted to bring back into use.

“The mix of housing we are going to get is going to benefit a wide section of the community.

“I am delighted about it and it was a difficult site to bring forward.

“There has been a fair bit of work needing done and officers have worked really hard.

“It has taken a long time but with the amount of work in the background I am really pleased to see it moving forward.”

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A virtual public consultation over the plans for the site took place last August, with the local authority hoping that development could be complete by 2023.

Drawings for the site, which housed one of the earliest gas works in East Lothian, dating from the 1840s, show seven buildings will be created on the site.

Four of those buildings will be two storeys and will contain 15 one-bedroom properties and nine two-bedroom homes.

The remaining properties will be one-storey buildings, featuring one three-bedroom property, one two-bedroom property and two one-bedroom homes.

A number of homes are for wheelchair and supported tenants, with dedicated staff premises.

Three objections to the proposals, which were put forward by East Lothian Council, were lodged with the local authority’s planning department.

Concerns included one of the two-storey blocks resulting in “a loss of privacy and overlooking of the houses at Coal Neuk Court”, while other complaints were the expected increase in traffic using Elder Court.

However, the planning officer’s report noted that the building would be “some 23 metres” from the nearest house on the nearby Coal Neuk Court, with a condition included in the planning approval to help maintain privacy.

The planning report said: “A ground-floor window and a first-floor window are proposed on the west (side) elevation of the proposed building.

“These windows would serve a wet floor shower room and a bathroom/shower room respectively and would be obscurely glazed.

“Subject to the installation of that obscure glazing, which could be made a condition of a grant of planning permission, the proposed windows would not allow for harmful overlooking of the gardens of the neighbouring residential properties of Coal Neuk Court to the west of the site.”