The local community council covers the villages of Aberlady, Dirleton, Drem and Gullane. Main subjects of concern are vandalism, the state of the roads and road safety in all its aspects. The consideration of the community’s views on current planning applications, particularly for larger developments, is a very time-consuming issue. In the 1990s the installation of masts for mobile telephone networks has caused concern.
Dirleton Village Association is concerned chiefly with amenity and planning issues. The main topics in 1999 were the planning applications made by Scottish Heritable and Rocco Forte pertaining to Archerfield estate. It also distributes the Dirleton Flyer at intervals to keep residents aware of progress on local issues and it organised the Millennium Hogmanay event.
The only political parties to have local groups are the Scottish Conservative Party, which has a Gullane branch and the Scottish Labour party with a joint North Berwick/Gullane branch.