Current status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 16 December 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure 100% monitoring of combined sewage overflows by 2030.
As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:
Scottish Water currently has around 1,400 overflow monitors in place (covering over one third of all intermittent discharges). Scottish Water has plans to increase monitor coverage to around 2,000 locations in total (nearly 50% of intermittent discharges) and will look to determine an approach to establish how many more monitors should be installed in 2026 and beyond.
A significant number of overflow locations are predicted never to spill and monitoring these locations would generate limited value beyond proving that overflow events do not occur. Monitors are relatively expensive to install and deploying these without generating any environmental benefit is unlikely to represent good value for customers.