1,000 signatures reached
To: East Lothian Council
Save Whitekirk
Resist all attempts to develop the site of the former golf course and preserve the character, setting and identity of this designated Special Landscape Area, securing its value as a haven for wildlife and as an amenity area for local people.
Why is this important?
Since closure in February 2016, the former Whitekirk Golf Course has become a haven for wildlife and a wonderful, well used amenity space for local communities. This unique and beautiful landscape is recognised in the East Lothian Local Development Plan 2018 as a Special Landscape Area, and provides valuable open space for people and wildlife in an area dominated by intensive farming and increasing development.
Wilkie Developments plans to destroy this fantastic landscape by turning it into a holiday camp. With over 200 proposed holiday lodges crammed on to the former fairways, the beautiful landscape and its wildlife will be lost to development forever. The area is enjoyed by a wide variety of flora and fauna including species such as skylarks, badgers, bats, owls, buzzards and swans, as well as a variety of wildflowers, trees and mosses.
The Local Development Plan states that development should only be permitted in Special Landscape Areas where "the public benefits of the development clearly outweigh any adverse impact and the development is designed, sited and landscaped to minimise such adverse impacts." The economic benefits of the development will no doubt be argued as a reason to override this protection, however it is clear that self-catering holiday lodges will generate only a very few low-skilled, low-paid jobs, and with poor public transport local people will surely struggle to sustain employment.
Over two hundred holiday lodges will generate hundreds of car trips per day to and from North Berwick. With only one bus every two hours from the site into North Berwick, all those cars will be clogging up the roads and competing for the already over-full car parks in the town.
The development will require significant infrastructure in order to support the 200 plus lodges, introducing light pollution, sewage treatment and a network of utilities. Once all this costly infrastructure is in place what’s to stop Wilkie Developments, housebuilders by trade, seeking to turn this into yet another housing development.
Please help to protect this rare and special landscape by signing the petition to prevent development and secure its future as a valuable wildlife habitat and amenity for the local communities. As a protected wildlife reserve, this wonderful space should be enjoyed by local people and also presents a fantastic opportunity to create an educational facility for local schools.
