Like your recent contributors to the Courier’s letters page, I have been delighted to read of East Lothian Council’s activities in respect of tree planting, and equally upset to learn of cases of tree loss around the county.

I understand the council aims to take sustainability and climate change seriously, and its website takes you to links about nature and biodiversity.

It is, therefore, disappointing to know that the council’s preferred option for the expansion of playing fields at North Berwick High School – with, by the admission of its own officers, no community-level consultation – includes the destruction of a mature, multi-species hedgerow, comprising some 150 trees, that forms a major shelter belt and nature corridor linking Grange Road with Haddington Road and the country park beside Pilgrim’s Way.

Those who are familiar with the background to this plan are aware that it has a long and tortuous history involving North Berwick Trust and East Lothian Council and a deal that simply doesn’t deliver enough land for the purpose when plenty is actually available.

Many will also know that a stretch of mature hedge was also removed – unnecessarily and, again, with no community-level consultation – when the construction site for the new Early Years facility was being prepared a few years ago.

The provision of adequate space for sports and outdoor education is vital to North Berwick’s young people.

But so is the retention of existing trees and hedges – it is central to the health of our natural environment, key to the wellbeing of our population young and old, and, moreover, crucial to the credibility of a local authority that seeks to stress its green credentials.

Eddie Clark

St Baldred’s Road

North Berwick