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Implementation of the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland)
Act 2003 Annual Report to Scottish Parliament 2003
Ministerial Foreword
I am pleased to present this first report to Parliament on our progress in implementing the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 (WEWS).
The WEWS Act underlines our belief that the environment is integral to the quality of life of every person who lives in this country. It is a resource that we should not prejudice through selfish use now, we must maintain it for future generations. I firmly believe that we must actively involve those with an interest - people, communities, business - in making decisions about the future of their environment.
By involving interested stakeholders in the development of the WEWS Act, we included provisions that will see the promotion of sustainable approaches to the management of our precious water resources.
And since the WEWS Act received Royal Assent in March 2003, we have built on those strong foundations. Much has already been achieved to translate the aims of the Act into action in just 9 months.
2003 has seen a number of key achievements:
In March we announced the formation of the National Stakeholder Forum, a group of senior representatives from industry, environmental groups, and farming and community interests, formed to oversee the introduction of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Scotland. I met with NSF members in October 2003 during their first meeting and was impressed by their enthusiasm and commitment to developing workable solutions for Scotland's environment.
In December, after consultation, we designated a single River Basin District for Scotland, with separate arrangements for the cross-border area with England. In making this designation we successfully completed transposition of the European Water Framework Directive by the due date of December 2003.
Significant progress has been made in the development of new regulatory regimes to control activities impacting on the water environment. Working groups were set up last year, comprising the Scottish Executive, SEPA, Scottish Water and Scottish Natural Heritage. Their task was to draw up proposals for controlling the following activities:
and a consultation paper will be issued shortly.
The Act requires that we must identify all significant pressures on every individual water body. This characterisation process is well underway in Scotland and SEPA are on target to produce the required report by December 2004.
SEPA has already started to develop its Scottish River Basin Management Planning strategy. They have identified the key areas of interest to stakeholders and are developing proposals in these areas to provide the clearest indication possible at this stage as to how, when and where interested parties could become involved in the process.
I am delighted to be able to report such good progress in so many key areas. In 2004 we will continue to build upon our achievements with the knowledge that our work is of true benefit to Scotland - our communities, our economy and our environment.
Allan Wilson MSP
Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development
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