By Bill Heaney
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today called for investment and ambition for Scotland’s rivers and waterways and warned that there must be no more disappointments, as Scottish Water published their Long-Term Strategy covering the next 25 years.
The strategy warns of the challenges posed by the climate crisis, population change and ageing assets.
It also notes that 10% of the network is made up of asbestos cement pipes and that the burst rate of these pipes will double by 2045. Asbestos cement pipes have been used since the early 1900s. Scottish Water previously noted that “We are proactively targeting A/C pipe replacement as we know these mains are coming to the end of their useful life (50–70 years)”. There is typically considered to be no safe level of exposure to asbestos.
In recent weeks it has been revealed that:
• There were 24,398 sewage dumps recorded in 2024, which lasted for a staggering 208,377 hours.
• Scottish Water have admitted that dozens of “high-priority” projects to stop the worst sewage releases in Scotland have still not been carried out more than two years on.
• Scottish Water have increased bosses’ bonuses by more than a third.
• Water bills increased by 9.9% in April.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, pictured right, said: “Many Scots including myself were looking for a plan that turned the tide on Scotland’s sewage scandal.
“Sewage was dumped 24,398 times last year, yet even that figure is likely to be a huge underestimate since so few overflow points are fully monitored.
“This plan identifies the challenges that Scottish Water will face over the next 25 years such as extreme weather, the need to replace aging infrastructure and the need to improve the quality of our rivers and seas.
“All of these are urgent issues in need of attention. Now it’s time to deliver investment and ambition that matches up to the scale of this challenge.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats want to deliver a sewage network fit for the 21st century. Scottish Water must ensure there are no more disappointments.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton today said “there are no consequences for sewage dumping in Scotland” after SNP ministers rejected calls from their own independent watchdog to urgently overhaul sewage dumping rules and new analysis drew comparisons with the disgraced Thames Water.
Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) found that Scottish Government guidance on sewage dumping fails to reflect the requirement for this to only occur in exceptional circumstances, set out by the European Court of Justice. However, the Scottish Government has refused to prioritise new guidance, which the ESS says leaves “an unacceptable lack of clarity” and “limits effective implementation and application of the law”.
It comes as new analysis by the Scottish Liberal Democrats exposes how sewage dumping by Scotland’s government-owned water company compares to that of Thames Water – this week fined more than £100m for environmental breaches involving routine sewage dumping.
Ofwat found 30% of Thames Water’s overflows spilled more than 60 times in 2021 and that it could not demonstrate that “these spills resulted from exceptional circumstances, or that it would have been excessively costly to address the spills from these storm overflows”. However, the equivalent figure for the sewage dumping pipes monitored year-round in Scotland is 42%.
Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “While Thames Water is hit with massive fines, there are no consequences for sewage dumping under this SNP Government.
“To make matters worse, SNP ministers are even defying their own independent environmental watchdog by failing to crack on and update 30-year-old sewage rules riddled with holes.
“To turn the tide on the sewage scandal, Scottish Liberal Democrats have published plans for a Clean Water Act that would bring our sewage network into the 21st century, clamp down on dumping and get to the bottom of this disgusting practice.”
The ESS report into sewage dumping in Scotland can be found here – https://environmentalstandards.scot/our-work/our-analytical-work/storm-overflows-an-assessment-of-spills-their-impact-on-the-water-environment-and-the-effectiveness-of-legislation-and-policy/
The ESS statement on responses where it rebukes the Scottish Government can be found here: https://environmentalstandards.scot/our-work/our-analytical-work/statement-on-responses-to-ess-storm-overflows-report/
The Scottish Water plan can be downloaded here.
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