Walk down towards West Beach and the boundaries seem obvious. There's Elcho Green and the town putting green, there's the beach, and then, stretching west, one of the most famous golf courses in the world. Administratively, financially and historically, these are different things. The sea, inconveniently, doesn't care.
Over the past few years the West Links has suffered serious storm damage. Engineers have been employed, emergency repairs carried out, planning permission granted for major new coastal defences, a charity created, and Gil Hanse brought in to think about the course over the next fifty years.
A few hundred yards towards town, Elcho Green has been eroding too. It hasn't been ignored: the council repaired storm damage there, and the new coastal charity says its intended area reaches the slip road beside it. But that raises the more interesting question. Why can I find a clearer long-term vision for this coastline from a golf club and a newly formed charity than from the public authority responsible for planning North Berwick's coast?
The difference isn't action. It's planning.
The easy version of this story is that golf is being protected while Elcho Green is ignored. It isn't true.
After Storm Babet the council rebuilt the sleeper wall, recovering and reinforcing timbers, back-filling the structure and putting more than 100 metres of wooden defence in place, on a "like for like, where possible" basis. Kenny Miller of North Berwick Community Council called it "excellent to see the sleeper wall going back at the West Bay" and credited the council with "a huge amount of work."
The real difference is what came next. At the West Links, storm damage led to engineering studies, major new defences, a dedicated charity, and the appointment of Gil Hanse — one of the world's leading golf architects — to draw up a fifty-year masterplan. That is a coastline being thought about in decades. At Elcho Green, the public record still tells us far more about what was repaired after the last storm than about what is intended before the next one.
Maybe the right answer there is to hold the line; maybe it's to rebuild dunes, extend protection, accept some retreat, or move things inland. Different stretches may need different solutions. The problem isn't that I don't know which is right. It's that the town can't easily see which one is even being considered.
This isn't just about a putting green
Elcho Green has no grand building, international tournament or membership income. It's one of those places North Berwick takes for granted: somewhere people cross on the way to the beach, where children play and families spend afternoons, with sailors and boats gathering nearby.
West Beach itself is a designated bathing water and again won recognition under Scotland's Beach Awards this year. Its value is hard to put on a balance sheet: no green fee for walking on the sand, no ranking for sitting on the wall, no membership income from taking your children putting. Which is exactly why public authorities exist.
The paperwork, though, has long divided this coast into pieces — the 2018 application covered the West Links shoreline specifically, not the town's beach frontage. That may make administrative sense. Storms don't care where a planning application ends or a lease begins.
The charity makes this more interesting
In July, Stuart Bayne said the new charity's initial scope "goes from the tenth tee on the West Sands right down to the slip road by Elcho Green." He described the town putting green as "used by everybody," said it had suffered "terrible erosion," and said the charity was looking at how it could help protect it.
That's encouraging. The charity talks not just about golf but about dunes, walking, birdwatching and the wider coastal environment, and its board includes North Berwick Community Council alongside North Berwick Golf Club, Tantallon Golf Club and Sustainable Golf.
But it creates a curious civic position. East Lothian Council is still developing its Coastal Change Adaptation Plan, while a charity whose origins lie overwhelmingly in protecting the West Links is already thinking about a stretch of coast that reaches into one of North Berwick's most public spaces.
That may prove a good arrangement. The club has expertise and access to donors, council budgets are tight, and collaboration may be the quickest way to protect the coast. But a charity board isn't public accountability, and having the Community Council in the room isn't the same as the town having a vote. If Elcho Green eventually needs substantial new protection, who decides what gets built? Who pays, who maintains it, and what happens if the best option for the golf course isn't the best option for the public beach beside it?
The golf club isn't the problem
This shouldn't become golf versus everybody else. The West Links matters enormously to North Berwick — its history, reputation, jobs and visitors. When the course started disappearing into the Firth, the club acted, which is what we'd want it to do. The question isn't why the golf club has been so organised. It's why the public picture isn't equally clear.
Elcho Green may need a completely different solution from the West Links. Residents should still be able to understand what that solution is meant to be.
Because every coastal defence is a choice. Scotland's National Planning Framework says development "should not result in the need for further coastal protection or increase the risk to people from coastal erosion." Defences need maintenance, have lifespans, and can change what happens around them. So how long are the newest ones expected to last? What will they cost to maintain? How will erosion beside them be monitored, and what does that mean as the coast continues towards Elcho Green?
The answers may exist. The town should be able to see them.
One coastline, one map
What North Berwick needs isn't another consultation asking whether people like the beach, nor a demand that Elcho Green get exactly the same protection as the West Links. It needs one map.
Show the coast from Elcho Green westwards: existing defences, storm repairs, newly engineered sections, areas being monitored, where erosion is happening, and who owns or manages each stretch. Then explain, in ordinary language, the approach for each section — holding the line, managing dunes, repairing after storms, adapting, retreating, or something else.
Right now it's remarkably easy to find out what's happening beside the third hole, and surprisingly hard to find out what the plan is beside the town's putting green. If that information exists, publish it. If it doesn't, that's the more worrying answer.
There is plenty happening here. The golf club has worked on erosion for years, engineers have investigated the coast, NatureScot has been involved, substantial works have been approved, and the council has repaired Elcho Green. East Lothian's wider coastal adaptation strategy is due by the end of 2026; most Scottish councils are in the same position, with only Moray having finished one. So the problem isn't inactivity. It's that the activity doesn't yet add up to one coherent public story.
North Berwick Golf Club seems to have recognised that the coastline doesn't stop where the golf course does; by its own general manager's account, its charity hasn't stopped at the edge of golf either. Now the council needs to make the wider picture just as clear. The sea doesn't stop at the golf course. Our planning shouldn't either.