Item 2 is draft Scottish planning policy 10, on planning for waste management. I welcome the Deputy Minister for Communities for this item. He is joined by Graham Marchbank, Graeme Purvis, David Reekie and Simon Stockwell. Thank you for joining us today.
In responding to that, shall I make a few opening remarks, or do you want me just to deal with the specific question?
I would prefer you just to deal with the specific questions. I was not aware that we had asked you to prepare an opening statement. I am sure that we will cover in questions everything that would have been in your opening comments.
I am sure that you will.
Send us copies via e-mail.
I will do that.
Is it the Executive's intention that the SPP should reflect any advances in and changes to waste management technologies and the new generation of installations that might be appearing? If so, how will you ensure that that happens on a rolling programme, instead of waiting for those changes to happen and taking them into account afterwards?
What has propelled us forward is not so much changes in the technologies, as most of the technologies for dealing with waste management are relatively well established and there have been no significant technological shifts. If brand new technologies come along, we will revise the policy in that context. The driving force for bringing forward the preparation of this document is the frustrations that existed in the planning system, particularly in relation to waste management facility applications. We want to take the benefits of the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006—the widening of inclusion, improvements in efficiency in planning, the culture change and the streamlined processes that are coming through because of the act—and apply them to waste management installations, where we think that those things are particularly relevant, given the scale of public concern that often exists over such proposals.
On that issue, given the poor perception of waste management facilities among the public, how can local authorities be encouraged to ensure—either collectively or individually—that development plans make sufficient provision for waste management?
As politicians, ministers—not necessarily me, but the Minister for Environment and Rural Development and other ministers—will set the overall policy framework, especially for dealing with domestic waste but also, to some extent, for dealing with industrial waste. Ross Finnie has today published a paper on commercial waste, which constitutes about 75 per cent of total waste. That will link in with what we are trying to do in this document. The framework is set by politicians; it will be the industry that produces the applications that will have to be dealt with through the process.
I admire the aims and intentions, but how can we ensure that we have enough waste management facilities to enable us to comply with European legislation? What extra powers do you foresee will be necessary if local authorities do not co-operate as you hope they will?
The penalties—both national and local—are considerable. If Scotland fails to achieve its waste management targets, infraction proceedings can be taken by the European Union. Also, if a municipal authority fails to meet its waste management targets, there are grant penalties that the Executive can impose. There is also the possibility of imposing fines on local authorities that fail to meet their targets. There are mechanisms to ensure enforcement, but we hope to avoid having to go down the enforcement route by issuing guidance and advice that require authorities, on a voluntary basis, to balance dealing with permissions through the planning arrangements and ensuring that they have the facilities in place to address the volume issues.
I want to continue on the theme of people's sensitivity to the proximity of landfill sites. The draft SPP does not provide fixed distances that should be maintained between waste facilities and settlements. What consideration was given to the inclusion of minimum recommendations for fixed distances, such as those for opencast sites, and how was the suggested distance of 250m for outdoor composting sites arrived at?
I refer the specific details of your question to one of my officials. There is a general issue about putting fixed distances in advice of this sort, as that may not meet the particular circumstances of an installation. It is sometimes hard to define precisely what the distance should be in relation to a specific installation. We hope that people will operate within a framework of guidance and be guided also by scientific evaluation.
The advice on the distance of 250m for a composting facility came from a publication called "Planning for Waste Management Facilities: A Research Study". That document contains general siting criteria and suggests that 250m is a reasonable distance for outdoor composting. It talks about distances for other kinds of plant, as well. In fact, it says that some of them can be operated very close to what might be called a sensitive receptor, which might be housing. The distance for a leachate treatment plant, for example, is given as 100m, so things can come close.
The landfill regulations reflect the terms of the European landfill directive. They say that, in considering granting permits for landfill sites, a number of factors must be taken into account, such as the distance from the boundary of the site to residential or recreational areas. The regulations ask us to take account of various factors but do not specify formal distances.
Let us move on. We have heard from some witnesses that the environmental impact assessment process would be expected to address distances between a waste management facility and a settlement. How would that be done in practice? I am thinking along the lines of mitigating against such things as odour and wind-blown waste. Would such things be taken into consideration in identifying a site? I know, from past experience, that waste water treatment works can be a nightmare. The minister will be aware of that, too. There are measures that can be taken to control odour, but I wonder what consideration will be given to that issue.
I yield to no one in my knowledge of the problems that are caused by waste water treatment plants. However, I will let Graham Marchbank or Simon Stockwell respond on the specific details of planning.
I cannot say that I have any experience of waste water treatment plants.
I am making a comparison with the odour and wind-blown waste from landfill sites.
I remember that point being made at the stakeholder session that was held two weeks ago. Odours do not respect boundaries or buffer zones, but they are dependent on a lot of moveable factors. The other thing that we say about cumulative impacts in the draft SPP is that, if it cannot be demonstrated that mitigation can be put in place through the wording of the environmental statement, the planning authority's decision might be that an application should be refused. That policy perspective is there in the draft SPP, but we also have the imperative of trying to meet our obligations to create new installations.
So mitigation procedures would be formally put in place.
There would be a mix of the planning conditions attached to the planning consent and, importantly, the pollution control licence that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency would issue.
The mechanisms for pollution control are, in a sense, separate legislative procedures under organisations such as SEPA. More specifically, local authorities' environmental health departments, as well as the operators, are the people who are responsible for running that.
Okay. The proximity principle states that waste should be transported to nearby facilities, preferably by modes other than road. Given the limitations of existing transport infrastructure in some areas of Scotland, how can that be achieved in practice? To be parochial, I ask that question in relation to the Highlands and Islands, in particular. Do you foresee significant cost implications in transporting waste by sea or rail as an alternative to transporting it by road, especially in servicing rural areas?
One of the problems in the Highlands and Islands—arguably, it is an even greater problem in the south of Scotland—is the limited amount of infrastructure and the distances between bits of infrastructure, whether road or rail. We must recognise that we cannot overcome those obstacles in a planning framework such as this. We must be pragmatic about that. We need to ensure that the distribution of waste management facilities is such that it does not mean that material is being dragged over excessive distances where that is avoidable. I would have thought that it is a matter for the planning authorities in rural areas to take account of the geographical and transport infrastructure circumstances of those areas in deciding what their waste management strategies are going to be. For example, it would not be sensible to have a single waste management treatment plant in the Highlands.
There is an economic argument. Companies such as Tesco and the heavy goods guys say that they go by road because it is cheaper to go by road, even at 5 miles to the gallon, than to go by rail or by sea. In the SPP, you are fairly prescriptive in saying that you do not want them to use conventional road transport, so it appears that they would have to use rail or sea where the infrastructure for that exists. I take it that the favoured option would be for them to use rail or sea links.
Where it is possible to use rail or sea links, or to make short road journeys to rail or sea transportation points, we should encourage that. However, we recognise that there are parts of Scotland where there are not many viable transport options—we could probably identify them geographically. Therefore, there are limits on what we can achieve.
Would there be an option to work in partnership with the forestry industry to use its rail links and facilities?
It would be logical for people to work in partnership and share facilities if there are opportunities to do so.
There are examples of waste being transported by methods other than road. For example, waste goes from Edinburgh to Dunbar by rail. There is at least one proposal to transport waste by sea in the Highlands—I do not know its current status. People who have sites that might be suitable for waste management installations notify whether the site has rail links that might make the site more suitable for waste management.
We are integrating land use and transport policies—another SPP deals with that—and we expect transport assessments to be submitted with planning applications for certain development proposals, so that consideration can be given to access to a site and what would go in and out of it.
Mr Stockwell unwisely referred to Dunbar. The transport of waste from throughout the Lothians to the Oxwell Mains landfill site at Dunbar was sold to the local authority and community on the basis that virtually everything would go by rail. It is excellent when most waste is transported by rail, which is sometimes the case. No one knows that the waste is there, because it is contained, which was the objective.
Enforcement is central and, as you said, a large part of that is contractual. If someone is asked to move waste from one place to another, their contract can specify standards.
Can more be done through SPP 10 or another mechanism to ensure that if an undertaking has been given to transport waste by rail, the stuff really is transported by rail and people cannot start taking liberties?
Infrastructure might be funded by the strategic waste fund, which is the ring-fenced grant that the Executive gives to local authorities. We provide advice to authorities on how the money should be spent and how they should work with the private sector and communities. As the minister said, it is key that contractual conditions should be complied with, including conditions on transporting material by methods other than road, such as rail or sea. We can certainly remind authorities in the guidance on the strategic waste fund that we issue that they should ensure that they properly enforce contracts that say that material should be transported by methods other than road.
I want to say something more before we leave the proximity issue. I listened carefully to what was said about flexibility and regulations in addition to SPP 10 that would be useful in considering the proximity between a landfill site and a settlement. The Scottish Executive thought that having a fixed distance between opencast sites and settlements was right. My experience in North Lanarkshire is that landfill often ends up filling up holes on sites that opencast mining has left. If it is good enough to have a fixed distance between opencast activities and settlements, why is it not good enough to have a fixed distance between settlements and landfill and waste management sites?
One possible answer to your question is that distances are set for opencast coal mining and hard rock quarrying to some extent because coal and rock are blasted out of the ground and flying rocks are dangerous. I think that a distance of 500m is advised in those circumstances. The opposite happens with landfill, in that things are put back into the ground.
I appreciate what you are saying, but for most of the time blasting in opencast mining will not occur right at the site's boundary—it will occur at varying points. Landfill activity can have as much of a negative impact on a settlement—in fact, its impact will often be much worse as a result of lorries generating noise as they go backwards and forwards on the site and drop off landfill. That noise, even on a landfill site with a life expectancy of 10 years, can be far more sustained than the noise on an opencast mining site. If we reach our recycling targets—which I want us to do—the landfill site in my constituency, which is the biggest in western Europe and which had a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years, will in fact have a life expectancy of 25 to 35 years. We recognise that such activity is needed, but we must ensure that it does not have a detrimental impact on communities. One way of ensuring that it will not do so is by having a fixed distance between landfill activities and settlements.
I appreciate your intention. Indeed, I would like to share my experience in that context. When I was a councillor in Glasgow, my ward included the major landfill site for Glasgow waste. That waste was often placed no more than 500yd or 600yd from people's houses and it was certainly a problem for those who lived nearby.
We will move on to cumulative effects a little later.
Paragraph 10 of the draft SPP, which deals with waste management, health and the environment, refers to a study by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that
SEPA's primary role is to regulate and monitor plant emissions of various kinds. It has a clear statutory duty in that regard. We rely on SEPA and council environmental health departments to ensure that all the environmental standards are maintained effectively.
That sounds fine, but communities have a problem with the lack of clarity in paragraph 10. In particular, SEPA's role must be made clear. Will you take that on board?
We could certainly take that on board and mention SEPA's role explicitly in the paragraph. Perhaps we could provide a footnote that sets out the relevant statutory agencies that identify the standards. I do not know how long that footnote would be, but I am sure that there is a way of managing the matter so that people who read the document can access the information and find out who is responsible.
The minister anticipated earlier that I would ask him about cumulative effect. He was right about that—he has obviously heard me mention the subject before.
The Executive, at both official and political level, is well aware of Greengairs—not least as a result of your highlighting the issues that have arisen, convener. What struck me about Ann Coleman's evidence was that she said that the relationship between the operator and community representatives had improved significantly, in comparison with what it was like 10, or even five, years ago. I do not claim that that is a result of the legislative framework that we have set up. The intention is to consider what went wrong at Greengairs in the past, what improvements have been made and what still has to be done in dealing with what is an exceptional circumstance that is still significant for the people living there.
I am glad that you mentioned conducting a scientific assessment of how landfill impacts on a community. We have come some way and made some advances—for example, four years ago, cumulative impact did not feature in the planning guidance or legislation that dictated whether an activity could occur. However, communities still need to be reassured and to have confidence that any application for a landfill site has been judged not just on its merits but on the science behind it to ensure that it makes sense for the site to be in a particular place. It is important to consider the cumulative effect of having a landfill site in close proximity to a similar development. How will the Executive provide such reassurance?
Topography plays a part in all such sites—I do not know whether Graham Marchbank wants to say any more about how we deal with the issue.
We take those points seriously. The 55 responses that we received to the draft SPP, including the response from the stakeholders panel, were certainly lively. One thing that we will come to terms with is the fact that, by and large, we will not be building new landfill sites. We will be building new installations that will generally be under a roof—in a tin shed, if you like.
One major issue is waste data. Information on municipal waste is continually improving, and because we have been funding significant changes in recycling facilities and other infrastructure through the strategic waste fund, the Executive now has information on roughly how much we expect waste to rise by in the next 15 years and how we expect it to be treated. We have information that will tell us that we need X amount of landfill, Y amount of recycling and so on.
A big challenge for the Greengairs operator is that, having spent a considerable amount of money in an attempt to deal with the leachate problem, it has encountered additional problems because of the limited type of waste that is put into the site. It has no scientific explanation for why that waste is increasing quite radically the levels of leachate, and it has to invest heavily in the site again to deal with the odour problems. However, we will not go down that road as it gets very scientific and technical—at points, it is too technical for the local MSP, I must say.
We all support working in and engaging with communities, and the draft SPP states that that is expected or required. What type of applications for waste management facilities will require pre-application consultation and environmental impact assessments?
I think that the answer is significant applications, but do not ask me to define too closely what "significant" means in that context.
Some definitions will be in secondary legislation arising from the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006. I will not read it out chapter and verse, but paragraph 38 of PAN 81 suggests that significant applications might be ones that are contrary to the development plan or which require environmental impact assessments. Such applications could well include some waste management installations.
When the private waste management industry gave evidence to the committee, it made the point that it now tries to engage with communities better than it perhaps did in the past. For significant infrastructure such as incinerators or landfill sites, the industry tries to engage with communities beforehand. There are also on-going community forums to discuss the operation of plants even after planning permission has been granted. The waste industry acknowledges the need for early engagement with communities.
I accept that, as a result of the new planning legislation, communities will be encouraged to get involved with local development plans. I hope that people will be much more aware of what is happening with the use of land in their communities.
You put your finger on a difficult issue. If we were to reduce the complexity of the scientific information so that it could be understood by every member of the public, some members of the public would be dissatisfied with the sophistication and rigour of the information. We are caught between a rock and a hard place. The important thing will be to ensure the maximum possible transparency. That is the guiding principle behind the SPP.
I accept what you have said, and I hope that that is the way in which we will operate in future.
There is no centralised fund, although a limited amount of resources go to Planning Aid for Scotland in relation to the full range of planning activities.
I apologise for the fact that I have been in and out of the committee room. I am also a member of the European and External Relations Committee, which is meeting in another committee room at the moment—these things make life interesting.
Your comments accord with my experience. When a planning application for a major plant is made it is almost always a mistake not to inform people—or to misinform them—about it. Members of the public appreciate being given accurate, truthful information by companies that make an active attempt to engage with them, explain what is happening and deal with issues that they raise. I always argue that if a company is considering developing a waste management installation its public engagement strategy will save it much money and hassle in the short and longer terms.
How can we encourage planning authorities to make the provision of recycling or waste management facilities an integral part of commercial, industrial or housing developments?
One way of doing that is by linking waste management strategies with the planning framework, at development plan stage or later, through development management, and by making it clear that we expect such facilities to be provided. We will make secondary legislation on development management on the back of SPP 10 and the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006, so the framework will push authorities hard in that direction.
On types of waste, several consultation responses said that the SPP did not refer sufficiently to non-municipal waste. Will the final SPP and the model policy provide more guidance on how non-municipal and special waste can be addressed through the planning system?
I do not think that you had arrived at the meeting when I said that my colleague and yours, Ross Finnie, today published a framework on the sustainable management of commercial and industrial waste, which makes up 75 per cent of waste by weight. SPP 6 and the document that Ross Finnie has produced establish a framework that is fair across the municipal and industrial sectors.
Has Ross Finnie touched on biomass? Will you tell us—or remind me—how the SPP will take account of the development of policies and technologies for dealing with such waste?
I refer that question to one of my colleagues.
We will deal with that in two ways. One way is through SPP 6—our renewable energy policy—which we hope to publish shortly and will consider the case for biomass to reduce greenhouse gases. As for building plant to use biomass as a fuel source, that ought to be as uncontroversial as a range of other waste installations is, provided that it is properly licensed and that the right locations can be found.
I will add a point that is not particularly apropos of biomass. Combined heat and power networks present an opportunity for energy and waste to contribute to amenity and area regeneration. That has a considerable future. I hope that, as we move forward with the SPP 10 process, opportunities will arise to take full advantage of converting waste into energy.
Do you foresee waste management plants that are self-sustainable through renewable energy in the long term?
Full self-sustainability might be too high a criterion to adopt, but the conversion of waste matter to energy can be an effective way of getting rid of waste material or reducing it to more manageable volumes. It is a virtuous circle. Whether that will reach 100 per cent may be questionable, but if it makes a percentage contribution it is valuable.
That is true in relation not only to energy but to plant compost, for example. A market exists for high-grade, high-quality compost, which can offset the costs of running a plant.
That concludes our questioning. Thank you for attending the meeting. The committee will shortly reflect on the evidence that you have given us and on previous evidence from stakeholder groups, and will consider what further action to take.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
We have heard from stakeholders and the minister and his officials about SPP 10. What issues do members think should be covered in further correspondence with the minister? Does anyone have any suggestions? I take it from the silence that everyone is happy.
Proximity is an issue that has to be addressed. Aligned to that are the mitigation procedures to combat the fears about odour and wind-blown problems.
I agree. We should seek further guidance from the Executive on the distance between developments and settlements.
We discussed the impact on health. It is important to have clarity in the SPP about the lines of communication and SEPA's role. Whether the Executive or any of us like it or not, people think that the health implications should be considered when an application is made. It is important that they understand how their concerns will be dealt with.
It is worth including in any report the general issue of the link between SPP 10 and the culture change in the new Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006. We said all the way through our consideration of the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill that we hoped that communities would not indulge in knee-jerk opposition to proposals and that people would be aware that we all need hospitals, roads and waste handling. We invited people to accept that it is our waste and that we have to make provision for handling and storing it. There is a relevant link to be made in the narrative.
Thank you. Your point about the tie-in with the 2006 act is important, but we should also tell the Executive that there needs to be a tie-in with other SPPs, such as SPP 6, which relates to biomass, the national planning framework, the national waste strategy and planning advice notes. We could ask the Executive to ensure that the links are clearly referenced, so that people can access the information easily.
We discussed renewable energy towards the end of the evidence session. Methane is created in many landfill sites and there is also wind or solar power, so consideration could be given to opportunities for utilising renewable energy to run plants, as long as it is not prohibitively expensive.
The matter should be covered in SPP 6, but you make a fair point.
There are huge opportunities in that regard. I do not know what happens at Greengairs, but at Oxwell Mains enough methane is recovered to provide all the power that the cement works next door requires. If modern landfill sites are properly laid out, the recovery of methane can be very valuable.
If members have no more comments, I will make a couple of suggestions. I asked the minister what changes would be made to SPP 10 as a result of the consultation responses. His answer was vague, which is understandable, but it would be helpful if he could provide us with details in due course.
We should add something about the risk of backsliding. People can start off with the good intention of transporting everything by rail, but something can go wrong and bad habits can creep into the system. We must keep an eye on that important issue.
Finally, we should ask the minister to reflect further on the cumulative impacts of sites. Communities should be confident that we are not just paying lip service to the issue and that the approach will deliver for them when hard decisions need to be taken about how we manage our waste. Every community generates waste and a single community should not take more than its fair share of the burden—sadly, that is not the current approach.