For a local authority to declare a climate emergency and follow this with considerations on building a car park that will increase parking spaces by 160 shows a level of disconnect that would be almost impressive if it weren’t so dangerous and misguided.

This is the equivalent of trying to extinguish the emergency of a house fire by hosing it with petrol.

And it is utterly clear that extra petrol is almost exactly the opposite of what is needed in this particular emergency.

What is needed is brave and significant change: pedestrian priority in a shared space town centre, cars moved to the absolute bottom of the pecking order within the town boundaries, street furniture and routing that ensures vehicle speeds under 10mph, subsidised and effective public transport.

Ironically, the reported objections to the car park are almost as bad as the idea itself. Boiled down, they simply read: “We don’t want to change, and no one else wants to change either.”

Well Joanna Gibson, read the news: we are all going to have to change, and change in ways that may cause discomfort, adaptation and a change in our speed of life.

Or we can continue to worship at the altars of cars and convenience capitalism, while our whole house burns down around us.

Dr Adam Burley

Long Cram

Haddington