Ambitious plans to introduce an ebike hire scheme across East Lothian were delayed by a worldwide shortage of the bikes, councillors have been told.
A virtual meeting of East Lothian Council's cabinet was given a final update on the work done as part of its Spaces for People project which aimed to make town centres safer and encourage outdoor activities in the first year of lockdown.
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And it was told that while more than £1million was spent on successful schemes including widening footpaths, cycle lanes and reducing speed limits, other projects were unable to be introduced in the 12 month time limit on funding.
This included proposals to introduce ebike hire schemes in town across the county with Musselburgh the only place where the scheme got off the ground.
Alan Stubbs, the council's road services manager, told the meeting: "The ambitions were extremely high at the start of Spaces for People to procure a lot of ebikes but down to Covid and supply and demand we could not do that."
His colleague Morag Haddow added: "There was a world wide shortage of bikes in 2020."
The meeting was told that plans to roll out the ebikes remained in place however there was now also a shortage of the stations used to store the ebikes which meant plans to have them as a permanent addition at Prestonpans Railway Station were also delayed.
Cabinet was asked to agree to make a range of measures introduced during Spaces for People, which was a Scottish Government funded initiative permanent, including the plans to extend the ebike scheme and reduce speed limits in town centres to 20mph.
The funding which was made available for projects was to be used in 2020/21 and the council did manage to agree some extra funding being carried over to this year but future projects will need to find new funding.
Councillor Colin McGinn called on the Scottish Government to look at ways for council's to access the money needed to introduce the schemes, which were drawn up after public consultation.
He said: "The Scottish Government has to realise the ambitions of local authorities like East Lothian to moving people around our county. Look at the number of electric car charging points we have around the county, we would like to see that replicated with ebikes as well."
Changes which were introduced as part of the project and which will become permanent after cabinet unanimously supported them were new cycle parking areas at beach car parks and other attractions, the retiming of pedestrian crossings to stop crowds gathering and new speed limits.
They also agreed to make a segregated footpath created between Cockenzie and Prestonpans permanent, along with a widened footpath at Countess Road, Dunbar and a new path at Hallhill, Dunbar and the ebike hire scheme, when possible.
Ad they backed making 20mph zones introduced during Spaces for People permanent.
Council leader Norman Hampshire said the Spaces for People changes were made during the pandemic to give people space to move around safely in their towns.
He said: "I think the interventions which are in place are the right interventions."
