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SCOTLAND'S BATHING WATERS: A strategy for improvement
ENSURING SUCCESS
30. Action is already being undertaken. Bathing water quality has been built into the Quality & Standards process. Research on transport and survival mechanisms of faecal pollution is continuing. An advisory post (see paragraph 21) has been created by the Scottish Executive, SEPA, Scottish Natural Heritage, WWF Scotland, NFUS and the SAC to co-ordinate means of delivering the four-point plan to farmers. The Executive strongly favours a co-operative approach, and is conscious that local knowledge will be vital in assessing how best to achieve the necessary standards. We intend to harness this local knowledge, though discussions with the water authorities, for example, on the best means of improving sewerage and sewage treatment, and workshops with farmers on means of carrying out the four-point plan. SEPA will use such knowledge in refining its improvement programmes, which it is drawing up to ensure that the causes of failure are addressed. Where bathing waters have a record of failure, or where SEPA's sampling during a season indicates a possibility of failure, the whole range of possible causes will have to be examined to establish an improvement programme. These programmes will target the principal causes of failure and will require action by all those who are contributing to the threat to bathing water quality. SEPA will provide advice to help those who have been identified as requiring to take action, and will carry out inspections to see that it is being followed. Where inspections show that work identified in the improvement programmes is not being carried out, however, SEPA will take the necessary regulatory action. This will depend on the problem, and the individual case. Warning letters will normally be sufficient. Action that may eventually be appropriate might be enforcement notices under Section 49A of COPA where a failure to observe consent conditions on a sewage discharge is endangering compliance. In the case of agricultural pollution, a notice under the Control of Pollution (Silage, Slurry and Agricultural Fuel Oil) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 might be required, since risks to statutory quality standards at bathing waters are clearly a significant matter.
31. Nothing short of full compliance will be acceptable. In the event of strategies outlined in improvement programmes failing to deliver compliance, clearly it will be necessary to reconsider the programmes and consider other measures which may not have been adopted previously. These measures may affect any or all of the main sources of pollution addressed here. On the other hand, where strategies are successful it will be important to offer feedback to encourage those who are carrying them out and to help others affected by similar problems.
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