Media relations

Press enquiries

If you are a professional journalist from a recognised media outlet who has an enquiry, please email media@westlothian.gov.uk 

The Communications Team will acknowledge your email within 24 hours and respond to your enquiry as quickly as possible (Monday - Friday, 8am - 5pm). If your enquiry is out with these hours, a team member will respond ASAP but please note that it may take longer to respond.

Unfortunately we do not have the resources to provide responses to student enquiries.

The council has a small Communications Team that respond to professional media enquiries from recognised media out lets. This team also manages the council's social media channels. This team is not resourced to respond to individual enquires from individuals running community social media pages or social media 'news' pages.

Social media enquiries

We fully appreciate that social media is an important channel for many.

We know that there are many sites that are set up as 'community' pages and/or community 'news' pages.

These can be run by community groups and volunteers, individuals, political groups, individuals living within a specific housing estate or collection of streets, or specific to a town or village.

There are already a large and growing number of 'community' news and information sites dedicated to West Lothian alone.

• Given the volume of social media sites and requests from groups and individuals for information, it is not possible to respond to requests via social media
• Given the resources available to us, West Lothian Council does not undertake customer service enquiries via Social Media.
• It is not possible for the council to respond to individuals or groups who request details or responses to questions for their social media 'news' sites, similar to a traditional press/media enquiry.

We aim to treat customers consistently and fairly and we cannot prioritise community social media 'news' sites over the needs of an individual.

We are an honest, open and accountable organisation and we will respond to all customer enquiries which are consistent with existing arrangements.  As is the case with all organisations, West Lothian Council has service standards for each council service.

Service standards are important for customers, potential customers, employees and management of the council. They aim to define what a customer can expect from a service. They also include standards relating to how each service will process and respond to customer enquiries taking both the customer need and the council's available resources into account.

You can seek information from the council via the council's website or the Customer Contact Centre as per the links below and your enquiry will be responded to.

Individuals managing and populating social media news and community focussed sites can also submit enquiries to the council via the council's website and Customer Contact Centre, as can any individual. They will be responded to in line with service standards. This is consistent with all customer enquiries.  

General enquiries

For general enquiries:

• use our contact us form
• go to Freedom of Information requests