They will not take long.
The commissioners have additional comments to make with regard to today’s questions and the points that have been made generally in objection to the bill. The function of the pow is to drain an area of approximately 1,930 acres of land. That drainage function directly benefits agricultural, commercial and residential land in the benefited area through flood alleviation, surface drainage and foul drainage.
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It is important to observe that the commissioners act on a voluntary, not-for-profit basis, and their proposed function under the bill will be to repair, maintain, renew and improve the pow for the benefit of all affected proprietors across its four sections. The commissioners have made approaches to Perth and Kinross Council, Scottish Water and SEPA, none of which is prepared to take over responsibility for the pow.
The arrangements under the 1846 act require updating to take account of changing circumstances, including the construction of residential properties on part of the benefited land at Balgowan. The bill, which has been the subject of significant public consultation, will update a number of arrangements, particularly for the calculation of the annual assessment that is payable by all heritors.
The bill has raised a number of issues, particularly with regard to residential properties. Residents have concerns about the benefit that they consider that they receive from the pow and about the arrangements for and the level of annual assessments. All residential properties benefit directly from the pow, which enables them to have surface water drainage and foul drainage, and which enables some to have flood alleviation. Permission would not have been granted for the residential properties without the opportunity for drainage of surface water and foul water, which ultimately goes into the pow. In addition to the individual septic tanks that drain into the pow, I believe that the committee saw during its site visit the waste water treatment plant for the new development at Balgowan, which drains into the pow.
As we have indicated in evidence, the commissioners do not consider that the annual assessment should be subject to a cap or limit. Although no capital expenditure is foreseen other than that for the provision of two beaver gates, the imposition of a cap would in practice place an unworkable and unacceptable limitation on the work of the commissioners in their repair, maintenance, renewal and improvement of the pow. Such a cap would mean that the bill was not future proofed, in circumstances where it must be.
On anticipated costs, we heard in evidence today that the beaver gates will cost about £42,000 to install, including the costs of any informal or formal arrangement with the landowners. The provision of the beaver gates is a concern for the committee and for the commission. It is an item of extraordinary expenditure that, although it is necessary to protect the pow, is not of the commissioners’ making; it is a consequence of policies and legislation that require the reintroduction and protection of beavers, and an exclusion area for beavers, which I think is the first in Scotland. It is considered important that SNH considers making sufficient grants available to pay for those works, and we will write to SNH shortly after this meeting to follow up on its deliberations about grant funding and its meeting with the Scottish Government.
I now wish to concentrate on the amendments to the bill that the commissioners are prepared to offer for the committee’s consideration to address its concerns. I believe that the proposed amendments would provide heritors—particularly the Balgowan heritors—with additional statutory protections.
The first amendment would allow for up to two commissioners to represent the Balgowan section of the benefited land. As the number of commissioners would increase from seven to eight, we would need to increase the quorum at meetings of the commission from three to four, to ensure that 50 per cent of the commissioners—four of the eight—formed a quorum.
The commissioners are minded to offer an amendment to allow a simple majority of the heritors of a particular section to dismiss a commissioner, but in relation only to their particular section.
The commissioners are prepared to offer an amendment to allow objectors to the annual assessment a formal right to comment on it—the 21-day period that we talked about. That would be backed by our reference to an independent surveyor, which we discussed.
We will also offer an amendment to make it clear that, when heritors cease to be heritors, or when commissioners cease to be heritors, they cannot be commissioners.
Further, we will offer for the committee’s consideration an amendment that would require the full register of heritors to be publicly available. That would match nicely with the website, when that comes forward, and would enable the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 to be met.
The commissioners have carefully considered the position on historical debt and have agreed that the historical unpaid assessments should be written off. That was considered to be a pragmatic approach, as the individual assessments are relatively small, and it is possible that it would not be cost effective to recover those assessments in any event.
The purpose of the bill is to update the arrangements in the 1846 act by establishing fair, straightforward and future-proofed procedures that will allow the maintenance, repair, renewal and improvement of the pow for generations to come.