Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Plenary, 12 Feb 2004

12 Feb 2004 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Sewage Dumping

Morgan, Alasdair SNP South of Scotland Watch on SPTV

Public consultation on the issue has been significantly lacking. At the well-attended meeting in Douglas to which I went, many people did not know what was going on. Much information was available to them, but whether that was all the information or was the correct information is another matter. The concern is genuine. I understand that some people did not attend the meeting that Ms Gillon organised, which may suggest that attitudes have become so entrenched that there is no way forward.

We can understand why communities that have been affected by opencast mining for many years, which is fairly unpleasant and does not necessarily bring much benefit to communities, feel that they have another disbenefit once that has ceased in tidying up the situation that they are in.

From dealing with all sorts of planning applications, we all know that smell is one of the most difficult matters to deal with. Councils impose many conditions, but it is the devil's own business to make anything happen if a smell appears after permission is granted. It is almost impossible to do anything about that.

I wrote to SEPA about the subject and it said:

"The issue of odour from such projects is clearly a relevant matter",

but,

"Obviously, assessment of smell nuisance is to some degree subjective and … it would be highly inappropriate for SEPA to resist the proposed project at Dalquhandy purely on the perception that there was a potential for some degree of unpleasant odour to be created."

That does not fill people with much confidence. Scottish Coal says that there will be no smell, but experience of planning applications means that one does not readily believe that 100 per cent.

I suspect that many members were, like me, surprised that no consent would have been necessary for the Dalquhandy project other than SEPA's registration of it as an exempt activity if South Lanarkshire Council had not fortuitously—I am sure that the council would say that it was by good design—put in planning consents. In other areas, such consents may not apply and no consents will be necessary. SEPA's interpretation of the regulations might be correct, but we must ask whether the regulations are correct.

As for transportation, the problem is that if no planning permission is required, we have no chance to examine lorry movements. We can understand why that is, because we do not license every lorry movement on our roads. That is reasonable, but long lorry movements are different. We have more confusion, because Scottish Coal told me that as sewage sludge is a low-value item, it would not be transported huge distances, and it referred to the central belt or Carlisle at the furthest. That seemed intrinsically acceptable. However, other people have informed me that a Department of Trade and Industry-subsidised trial is bringing sewage sludge from Manchester to the village of Forth. I do not know which statement is true; all I am saying is that different stories are going around.

As for risks, Euan Robson is right that the sludge is treated, but I understand that the most basic treatment has been applied to the sludge. We are dealing not with Mr Ballance's tobacco but with fairly nasty semi-solid or semi-liquid sludge. People have every right to ask why, if dumping such material at sea is forbidden, it is okay to dump it up the road from them. We must accept that people hold that concern genuinely.

In conclusion, if the small-scale trial that is proposed now goes ahead, it is essential that not only councillors and MSPs but the local people themselves are involved in seeing the monitoring arrangements that are put in place and in evaluating the results.

Search Hansard contributions

Plenary, 12 Feb 2004

In the same item of business