Progress
The next item relates to the petitions that are currently before this committee. Paper PE/00/1/2 deals with the petitions that have passed through the committee and gives an update on each one. I would like to draw the committee's attention to petition PE23, from the Save Wemyss' Ancient Caves Society. We have received full replies from Historic Scotland and Fife Council; those replies have been circulated to committee members for this meeting.
Over the years, Fife Council and Historic Scotland have taken steps to try to limit the coastal erosion that has affected access to the caves and threatened them. Protection works alone have totalled £150,000. However, none of that work has been of sufficient specification for long-term protection; it has always been regarded as an emergency or interim measure. One of the problems that the petitioners have identified is the condition of an abandoned sewer and the wall that was built to protect the sewer, which contribute to the difficulties of access and safety. The council has given details of the difficulties that it has had in removing the sewer and wall. Although discussions have taken place with East of Scotland Water Authority, the issue has not yet been resolved.
Fife Council previously estimated that work in excess of £100,000 was likely to be required to resolve access problems. More recently, the cost has been estimated to have risen to around three times that sum. Even at that price, work would amount only to an interim measure, to enable access through an area that is not part of a formal access route maintained by the council. The annual budget for footpath maintenance throughout Fife—including the extensive coastal path—is only £117,000, and the council considers that it would be unrealistic to consider funding works of that order in an area of informal access when its existing commitments are under-resourced. For technical and financial reasons, it does not consider the petitioners' proposals for improving access to be realistic.
The crux of the matter seems to be that access to the caves is tied to their wider protection by coastal defences. Fife Council is aware that the coastal defences in the area fronting the caves need to be upgraded, and has costed a scheme at £1.72 million as part of the Wemyss coastal villages initiative. However, Scottish Executive grant aid would be needed for that work, and the council's understanding is that the scheme would not qualify for grant aid as it would not show a positive cost-benefit ratio in economic terms. Given those cost constraints and other funding pressures, the council says that it will not be able to commit the necessary funds for coastal protection, even on a partnership basis. I invite members' views on what action should be taken.
I read the documentation on this particularly carefully. The letter from Fife Council makes the point that it is not possible to attribute a value to the caves using standard cost-benefit methods. I have visited the caves and the display about them. People have to decide whether they want to protect these caves, and for what purpose: should it be to allow public viewing, or so that they exist for posterity even though nobody is allowed to see them?
Fife Council is the only council in Scotland that has a shoreline management plan. That plan accepts that there will be coastal areas that cannot be defended against the sea. However, there are other areas that we might choose to defend, at a cost. This committee has to take a view about how we fund the protection of the most precious bits of our coast. The Scottish Executive does not have a grant aid scheme for that. There should be a fund to protect such areas, whether they be here, at Troon, at Ayr or elsewhere.
We should express the view to the Scottish Executive and our Scottish parliamentary colleagues, perhaps through the Transport and the Environment Committee, that there ought to be a shoreline management plan for the whole of Scotland. The Scottish Executive should fund the protection of the areas that such a plan identified as ones that we wanted to protect. I would hope that it would emerge that the Wemyss caves were such an area, as the drawings in the caves are the oldest in Scotland—I do not know whether they are the oldest in the United Kingdom. Tam Dalyell and many others have written about them in great detail, and he and others have supported their protection. Fife Council has identified them as an area that it would like to protect, but anyone who has investigated coastal erosion will know that little money is available anywhere in Scotland to protect the shoreline against it.
The question is the balance between preservation of one's culture and incurring enormous costs. Perhaps we should seek comments from the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, rather than from the Transport and the Environment Committee, as historic sites are a cultural matter. Has there been a feasibility study, other than the costings that are presented here? We are given figures, but I am not sure what their source is.
I know a lot about this as I used to be the chair of the relevant committee—perhaps I should declare an interest.
Helen Eadie will be our Fife guru.
The village of East Wemyss, which is in a former mining area, is threatened. Old photographs show no resemblance to the present view. Mine workings used to deposit waste on the beach, which was then built on, but, because the mine is no longer working, the sea is now beginning to reclaim land. Land on which there are people, homes, jobs and culture should be declared a national priority.
Where land that is solely for agricultural use is being reclaimed by the sea, it should be for the landowner—the laird or the farmer—to decide whether they want to cover the costs of preserving that land. There needs to be a plan. Like Christine Grahame, I think that the Education, Culture and Sport Committee should take a view on this issue. However, the Transport and the Environment Committee should also be consulted, because the whole of Scotland, rather than just Fife, needs a shoreline management plan. The problem of coastal erosion has affected Highland, Moray and Nairn, Lothian and Borders—I am not sure about Ayrshire. We must decide whether we want to give priority to some areas and allow others to be reclaimed by the sea.
We must distinguish between coastal erosion and protecting a cultural site, although in this case the two issues happen to coincide.
There are houses right next to this site.
I am talking about establishing a principle when dealing with cultural sites.
To be fair, these issues are for other committees to decide. Shall we refer the petition and the correspondence to both the Education, Culture and Sport Committee and the Transport and the Environment Committee, and ask them to indicate any action that they wish to take? I think that the petition has already been sent to Rhona Brankin, in any case.
We could ask the two committees to take evidence about costings and so on, so that the facts can be established.
We could ask them to address the costings issues raised by the petitioners and to suggest any action that they believe the Scottish Parliament should take. In the short term, can we agree that the clerk will write to the petitioners enclosing copies of the replies from Historic Scotland and Fife Council, and to East of Scotland Water asking it to detail how it proposes to resolve the problem of the collapsed sewer in the wall that is crumbling? I do not know whether the committee thinks that it is worth writing to the owners of the caves, Wemyss Estates, to ask for their comments.
It might be more useful if that were done by the committee that conducts the investigation.
We agree to refer the petition to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee and to the Transport and the Environment Committee. We further agree that the clerk will write to the petitioners enclosing the replies that we have received and to East of Scotland Water asking it to detail how it plans to deal with the short-term problem of the sewer in the collapsing wall.
We should also ask the other committees to take evidence on the facts, including from the owners. They could take evidence from East of Scotland Water while they were at it.
Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Do members want to comment on any other previous petitions?
No.