A gift card scheme which encourages people to shop in East Lothian has seen the amount spent on it treble in two years.
East Lothian Council's gift card scheme was launched as a year-round extension of a Christmas shopping project which let people spend vouchers in local businesses who signed up to it.
A meeting of the council's audit and governance committee heard the scheme, which is run by East Lothian Investments on behalf of the local authority is going from strength to strength.
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An annual report revealed that during 2021/22 gift cards with a value of more than £82,000 were bought - compared to £26,600 during its first full financial year of 2019/20.
And it revealed that since the gift card was launched in October 2018 nearly 9,000 cards had been bought with an overall value to the local retailers of £192,931 - with the average gift card value just over £21.
RIchard Baty, from East Lothian Investments said that by the end of the last financial year 137 businesses had signed up to take the cards with another 20 signing up since then and more expected as businesses come out of the pandemic.
A breakdown of businesses accepting the cards in the report showed most were in the east of the county with 31 in Haddington, 27 in Dunbar, 20 in North Berwick and Dirleton and 10 in Gullane.
East Lothian's largest town Musselburgh in the west had just 19 businesses signed up with 19 in Tranent and Prestonpans.
Councillor Leigh Ann Menzies asked what was being done to encourage more of the shops and businesses in the more heavily populated areas to sign up.
Mr Baty told the committee the board had recently taken on a new co-ordinator who was visiting all the towns to encourage more businesses from all parts of the county to take part in the scheme.
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