The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

4.(vi) RURAL AFFAIRS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Introduction

The Rural Affairs and the Environment portfolio plans include funding for a wide range of capital projects mostly minor in nature through a variety of grant schemes. The budgets are summarised in Table 4(vi).1:

Table 4(vi).1: Forecast Infrastructure Investment - Rural Affairs & The Environment

As part of the Concordat with local government, funding for Strategic Waste Fund, Flood Protection and Coast Protection, Land Decontamination and Air Quality monitoring has been rolled up and transferred into the local government settlement. Brief details are provided on the above areas where programmes will result in capital investment.

Scotland Rural Development Programme

There will be significant capital investment in rural areas through the Scotland Rural Development Programme and other grant schemes, which helps to support rural communities. Most of this investment is in the form of individual grants to farmers, other rural businesses and rural communities. Whilst much of this capital investment is in private infrastructure, some of it is spent on public infrastructure such as village halls and other community facilities.

Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Support for SEPA is contained within the Environmental Protection, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Spending Line. SEPA are planning to construct new office accommodation and laboratory premises in Torry, Aberdeen. The accommodation will be shared with Scottish Natural Heritage and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. This project was originally launched under the 'On the Ground' initiative and will now be taken forward under the new Scottish Environment and Rural Services ( SEARS) banner. The new building will replace existing offices which are inadequate and do not meet standards. The objective is to secure a new building which will maximise sustainable design and construction practices within site and budgetary constraints and achieve a reduction in carbon emissions. The new premises will make a significant contribution to the regeneration of the Old Torry area of Aberdeen. The project has a capital value of £8.1 million, with site clearance and construction taking place in 2008-09 and projected completion anticipated by end 2009. The project is currently approved and awaiting planning permission, with procurement scheduled for Spring 2008.

SEPA and its key flood-warning partners have agreed in principle to take the lead role in implementing and operating a national, integrated flood-warning dissemination service. This service will have the capability to deliver alerts directly to the public via a variety of active channels such as telephone, mobile phone or SMS text message.

Following an investigative study, including proving the suitability of participating in the Environment Agency ( EA) flood warning dissemination system Flood Warning Direct ( FWD), SEPA presented a business case for this to be implemented as part of Spending Review 2007.

SEPA are to implement a version of the Environmental Agency's Flood Warning Direct where SEPA would retain flexibility in configuration and branding of its own system but share the costs of running and operating an underlying system infrastructure with EA. One-off programme costs associated with this option and an associated business change exercise and awareness campaign is approximately £7 million with ongoing operating costs in terms of system support and administration of £0.8 million per annum.

The critical nature of running an effective, locally based public awareness and registration campaign and sustaining this effort into the future has been emphasised in consultation with the programme's stakeholders, as have requirements for the service to provide support for SEPA's duties under the Civil Contingency Act.

Assuming a programme start-up in Spring 2008, the estimated delivery timescales for the programme would be 2010-11. Estimated numbers of registered properties at 'go live' for the service are 23,000 while the solution could easily support numbers in excess of the estimated properties at risk in Scotland (100,000).

Zero Waste

Provision for Zero Waste is contained within the Environmental Protection, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Spending Line. The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment recently made a parliamentary statement outlining how Scotland would achieve a zero waste society. The statement included proposals for Scotland to seek to minimise waste arisings, recycle more, landfill less and limit the amount of waste treated by thermal processes. This will have impacts on the waste infrastructure now required to meet policy objectives, which are outlined as far as is currently possible in the following paragraphs.

The statement contained new key waste management targets related to recycling, treatment and landfill. Table 4(vi).2 below shows these proposed new municipal waste targets for recycling/composting, energy from waste (or other forms of thermal treatment of residual waste) and landfill in the key years of 2010, 2013, 2020 and 2025. Over that period recycling/composting targets will rise from 40% in 2010 to 70% in 2025. A limit of 25% will be set for energy from waste/thermal treatment. By 2025 only waste which can neither be recycled/composted nor treated should be sent to landfill. These are consistent with our EU obligations.

Table 4(vi).2: New Municipal Waste targets (%)

Zero waste policy aims to contribute directly to the 'Greener' Strategic Objective, the National Outcome to reduce the impact of our consumption and production and the National Indicator relating to the amount of waste going to landfill.

A second policy driver that will affect capital expenditure on waste management infrastructure was contained within the Spending Review 2007. From 1 April 2008 local authorities' government funding for recycling services will no longer be provided via the ring-fenced Strategic Waste Fund ( SWF), but will instead be transferred to the local government settlement. This means that it will be a matter for each local authority to determine prioritisation of spend in light of national priorities and local circumstances, which will include decisions on capital expenditure on waste management infrastructure. This is also in line with the new Concordat between the Scottish Government and local authorities.

Waste Infrastructure Requirements in the Context of Zero Waste

All residual waste infrastructure projects are revoked as per Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment's Parliamentary statement of 24 January 2008. The key excerpt from his statement is provided below:

"… the previous Administration provided indicative allocations to groups of local authorities for residual waste infrastructure, most likely to be energy-from-waste plants. We cannot support the building of large energy-from-waste plants that have low efficiency levels, which could prove a disincentive to recycling and require major public funding over a very long period. We will not support such large-scale waste incineration in any part of the country. We are therefore revoking the indicative allocations…"

The Scottish Government's spending plans for the period 2008-11 included an allocation of £154 million to a new Zero Waste Fund. The proposed expenditure in this area is £41.1 million in 2008-09; £54.4 million in 2009-10 and £58.7 million in 2010-11, as presented in Table 4(vi).3.

Table 4(vi).3: Zero Waste Fund

Around £50 million over 3 years will be needed to support delivery bodies doing work in areas such as waste prevention, developing markets for recyclate, waste education and awareness, commercial and industrial waste and community recycling.

The Scottish Government envisages that the remaining £100 million will be spent to support local authority work on recycling and to support efficient infrastructure to divert municipal waste from landfill. A short-life working group will shortly be established at official level with COSLA to advise on how these resources should be allocated.

Without pre-judging decisions from the aforementioned working group, Zero Waste Fund resources are likely to be used to support a wide range of infrastructure from equipment required for the collection and treatment of recyclate and compost to major treatment infrastructure, including 'high efficiency' energy from waste plants. It is the Scottish Government's view that resources should not be provided for infrastructure linked to disposal to landfill and 'low efficiency' energy from waste plants.

Examples of infrastructure attracting support could be bins, skips and vehicles linked to new kerbside and on street recycling schemes; new or major refurbishments to recycling centres; in vessel and anaerobic digestion plants to treat biowaste; materials recovery facilities; and mechanical biological treatment plants where these recover recyclate or recover waste for use as a fuel and energy from waste plants using various technologies where they result in effective efficiency levels in excess of 60% (such as combined heat and power and district heating). The Scottish Government estimates that the 25% thermal treatment cap is equivalent to a waste capacity requirement of 0.75 million tonnes.

Because of the long lead times for certain types of infrastructure, the Scottish Government will consider pre-commiting resources into the next Spending Review period up to the limit of the baseline for 2010-11 for the zero waste budget.

The handling and funding of infrastructure investment in this sector, as in others, should also relate to plans for the Scottish Futures Trust to be established and tasked with advising on delivery methodology, co-ordinating and possibly obtaining aggregated funding in relation to the waste initiative on best commercial terms. It is important that authorities are supported and combine under standardised procurement approaches if the programme as a whole is to be efficient in meeting the targets and delivering good value for money. Nevertheless, it would be for local authorities to secure best value for money and they would remain accountable for solutions and delivery in their areas.

Flood Prevention and Coast Protection

Responsibility for the funding of flood prevention and coast protection schemes (previously in the Environmental Protection Budget) now rests with local authorities under the Concordat and local government settlement. Details of flood initiative schemes requiring local government investment in excess of £5 million are detailed under the respective local authority in Chapter 4(vii).

Creation and Exchange of Scientific Knowledge

Just over £30 million will be invested in the Scottish environmental, agricultural and biological science base during the next 3 years to promote research and knowledge exchange. This will include an investment of just over £5 million in 2008-09 for the completion of the new £16 million Gateway Visitor Facility at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. An investment of £6 million is also planned to enable the Scottish Agricultural College to participate in the new campus at Ayr being planned by the University of the West of Scotland. In addition, £12 million has been earmarked for investment in a new Institute for Nutrition and Health as part of a planned merger by the Rowett Research Institute with the University of Aberdeen.

Forestry Commission Scotland

Confidence in the forest industry is currently very high, with unprecedented levels of new investment in the processing and wood utilisation sector. Despite fierce global competition, Scotland's processors have managed to remain profitable through a period of historically low timber prices. This has been due to continuous investment in new equipment, and improved operating processes. Over the last 2 years alone, new wood-using developments, either commissioned or committed, have amounted to £250 million. These include new sawmills at Lockerbie, Dumfries, Fortwilliam, and Kincardine, as well as major biomass energy projects at Lockerbie, Irvine, and Invergordon.

The emergence of the bioenergy sector represents another huge opportunity for Scotland's forests and woodlands. The Scottish Biomass Support Scheme has been well subscribed, and some £17 million of new projects will come on stream this year, assisted by £7.5 million from the scheme.

This issue of sustainability is vital for continued investment by the processing sector, continuity of employment, and allowing us to achieve the sorts of forest and woodlands we aspire to. The steady increase in timber production since 1970 has reflected the nature of forest planting over the last century. As a result of much reduced planting levels during the last 20 years, future forecasts of production indicate a significant fall in volume, which if not addressed now will have a significant detrimental impact on our timber harvesting, haulage, and processing sectors.

For this reason the Government has the aspiration to plant around 9,000-10,000 hectares of new forests and woodlands each year. This will help deliver the vision for Scottish forestry, where woodlands, of the right kind and in the right places, expand to cover 25% of Scotland's land area this century. This aspiration represents a significant additional woodland area, much of which will be native woodland, and broadleaved in nature. However, in order to help us to achieve the level of sustainable production, which we know is appropriate for a globally competitive forest industry, we will also need to increase the area of sustainably managed faster growing coniferous forest. To manage the forecast downturn in production after 2025, we need to concentrate on this type of forest in the early years.

The EU's approval of our Scottish Rural Development Programme means we are now able to start making measures available to support this necessary forest expansion. Through Rural Development Contracts we are providing strong support for new woodland creation. £269 million will be allocated for use by forestry measures over the life of the programme: this is over £38 million a year and represents a historically high level of support in recognition of what forestry can deliver for Scotland. Forest Enterprise Scotland will also deliver a new planting programme up to 2,000 hectares per annum.

For many rural communities timber transport can be a contentious issue. To ease this we have extended the life of the Strategic Timber Transport Fund, due to close in January 2008. This will now continue providing financial support until 2011 with a total budget of £15 million over the next 3 years. The fund will help the forest industry deliver practical solutions to reduce the impact of timber lorries on Scotland's rural roads and offer real benefits to rural communities.

In relation to the built infrastructure belonging to Forestry Commission Scotland, the largest single investment currently planned is a visitor centre and surrounding infrastructure at Glentress, near Peebles, where contracts to the value of £2 million to £3 million are expected to be let during Summer 2008.

Marine and Fisheries: Fisheries Research Services ( FRS)

European legislation coupled with the current climate of increasing bio-security awareness imposes pressures on FRS to increase their capability and capacity in dealing with outbreaks of exotic fish diseases. The outdated nature of the existing facilities makes for an onerous role in risk management, minimising cross-contamination between experiments and also prevents FRS maintaining their contingency planning for, amongst other things, safeguarding Scotland's aquaculture industry.

The aim is to replace existing outdated and inadequate laboratories and aquaria with a modern, purpose-built and bio-secure Fish Veterinary and Aquaria ( FVA) facility. The FVA facility will consist of high-containment aquaria and laboratories with associated office accommodation. FRS aims to achieve an integrated facility that will foster creativity and improved communication through the organisation. The capital value is £15 million with tenders due in September 2008; and construction between Spring 2009-10.

« Previous | Contents | Next »