CALLS for three alcohol hotspots in East Lothian to face tougher controls when it comes to new drink outlets have been dismissed amid claims that people will only travel further to buy booze.

Health chiefs had recommended that parts of North Berwick, Haddington and Musselburgh be labelled overprovision areas in East Lothian’s new licensing policy, which is currently being drawn up for the next five years.

They were backed by East Lothian Licensing Forum, the advisory body to East Lothian Council’s licensing board, which said that while the county as a whole did not justify a “whole area approach” to an overprovision statement, some “intermediate zones” where there were high numbers of sellers did.

It is estimated that 25 per cent of people in the county drink above the advisory guidelines, higher than the national Scottish average of 24 per cent.

Last year, 19 deaths in East Lothian were related specifically to alcohol – an increase of seven from the previous year – and it is estimated that the average neighbourhood crime rate is 218.7 alcohol-related crimes per 10,000 populations, which is 34 per cent lower than the Scottish average of 331.2. 

The licensing forum and health chiefs had recommended that new areas – labelled Musselburgh North, Haddington South and North Berwick South – were identified in the new licensing policy as having overprovision.

The forum recommended “tighter controls should be implemented on theses areas and applications scrutinised highly in terms of any additional capacity or new premises”. 

And it said: “The forum is aware that adopting such an approach may be seen to stigmatise certain communities. 

“However, the forum is clear that the identification of such areas does not reflect on the people, values or lifestyles of the people who live there. Rather by identifying such areas, the forum is providing board members with evidence of harm linked to the number of alcohol outlets.”

However, despite the forum’s call, the draft statement of the revised policy, which is due to go before the board for approval, does not include the highlighted areas.

Instead it says of consultations carried out ahead of drawing up the new policy: “Some respondents to the previous policy were of the opinion that East Lothian is too large and diverse a county to be classed as a single locality and were minded to consider each area and rural village as individual localities. 

“Conversely, many respondents, including the licensing forum and NHS, felt that East Lothian is a place where if alcohol cannot be found in one area then people would happily travel to an adjoining area or further afield to purchase it.

“Therefore, their view was that dividing East Lothian up into smaller localities would have little impact on preventing harm to health or reducing crime and that the whole of East Lothian should be considered as one locality.”