Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, 08 Oct 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Official Report 244KB pdf

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Petition

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Sewage Sludge (PE749)

Agenda item 5 is consideration of petition PE749, from Geoffrey Kolbe, on behalf of Newcastleton and district community council, which is about the spreading of sewage sludge. The petition has been around for a very long time although, in fairness, that is because it took Scottish Water a very long time to do what it was supposed to do, which would have helped us to progress the petition or close it.

The sewage sludge strategy was finally published in May this year. We asked the petitioner for a view, which has been circulated to members. He indicates that the strategy does not address his concerns. The paper that has been circulated includes a number of options, and I invite members to give their views on what further action to take.

Given our short to medium-term workload, I think that it will be extremely difficult to take evidence on the issues that the petition raises, and I do not think that the legislation that is proposed by the petitioner is a realistic prospect, especially if it has to be initiated by this committee.

I have to say that we were extremely unhappy with the extremely late publication by Scottish Water of the strategy, which has caused enormous delay in the handling of this petition.

Notwithstanding the delay in publication, Scottish Water's strategy document, which I read in the early hours of this morning, seems pretty reasonable. I suspect that it does not meet the requirements of the petitioners—although I should note, with respect, that it might be impossible to meet their requirements. Perhaps we should seek the petitioners' views on the strategy and ask how it will impact on their particular problem.

We have already done that.

I was not sure when the letter from the petitioners was received—that shows what time of night it was when I was reading the papers. In that case, I will stop and allow someone else to contribute.

I am new to the committee but, from what I have read, it seems that we have come to the end of the line with regard to what we can do on this petition, given that our workload and timetable preclude our initiating legislation and so on. Perhaps it would be useful to ask Scottish Water to meet the petitioners to talk about the strategy and explain how it might meet their requirements. Quite often, getting people together to have a discussion allows them to iron out some of their problems and results in everyone going away quite happy.

I share that view. As John Scott said, it might be impossible for the strategy to meet all the petitioners' requirements, but there is clearly a lack of confidence in Scottish Water. It would be useful to find a way of enabling Scottish Water to assure the petitioners that the implementation of the strategy will be meaningful. There is always a tendency for a strategy to sound like a lot of fine words, so it would be useful if the petitioners could be told what it will mean in practice. A meeting between the petitioners and Scottish Water might be the best way of allowing those assurances to be provided.

I think that we should close the petition, as there is not much more that the petitioners can say. They use an example of something that happened south of the border to draw conclusions about how Scottish Water is going to behave. I do not see the point of that.

The idea of trying to broker a meeting is good, but I wonder whether, if we close the petition before then, Scottish Water will agree to the meeting. If the petition is still open, it might be more inclined to agree to speak to the petitioners.

If we wrote formally to Scottish Water to suggest that it should open a dialogue directly with Mr Kolbe to try to resolve some of the specific issues that he is raising, I would be extremely unhappy if it ignored that request. The clerk has reminded me that if we close the petition today, the petitioner can still contact us if Scottish Water refuses to play the game.

Could the petition be reopened?

The issue would be slightly different; we would be dealing not with the petition but with the complaint about Scottish Water.

Rhoda Grant's suggestion is helpful and I suggest that we proceed on that basis. Do we agree to close the petition and write to Scottish Water to suggest in the strongest possible way that it meet Mr Kolbe and the people he represents to try to resolve the difficulties that are still felt to exist?

Members indicated agreement.

That ends the public part of today's meeting.

Meeting continued in private until 12:32.