Questions and answers

Question reference: S3W-09129

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether, in respect of its targets on waste, it will pay the fines of local authorities that now have to change their plans for dealing with waste, following the ministerial statement on 24 January 2008.

No. The Landfill Allowance Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2005 set maximum amounts of biodegradable municipal waste that can be disposed of by local authorities to landfill each year and any penalty liabilities that are notified by the Scottish ministers under the regulations fall to the local authorities themselves. In any event, the distribution of year-on-year allowances has only been set up until 2010 and none of the local authority plans envisaged delivery of infrastructure before this time.

Question reference: S3W-09130

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of Audit Scotland’s analysis of the greater cost of delivering higher waste recycling targets, what additional resources will be available to meet the higher targets in the Scottish Government’s new waste strategy (a) across Scotland and (b) in each local authority area in each of the next three years.

The Scottish Government will provide local authorities with record levels of funding over the period covered by the spending review 2008-11. The vast majority of the funding, including the former ring-fenced Strategic Waste Fund, will be provided by means of a block grant. It will therefore be the responsibility of each local authority to allocate financial resources to meet its obligations, needs and priorities.

In addition to this, Scottish Government''s spending plans for the period 2008-11 included an allocation of £154 million to the Zero Waste Fund. The proposed expenditure across Scotland is £41.1 million in 2008-09; £54.4 million in 2009-10, and £58.7 million in 2010-11. Around £50 million of the total will be spent on support of delivery bodies but the remaining £100 million is intended to be spent on putting the necessary infrastructure in place to meet our longer term waste targets post 2010-11. A short-life working group will shortly be established between Scottish Government and COSLA to determine how this financial resource should be best deployed.

Question reference: S3W-09136

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Environment Protection Agency will be expected to give local authorities specific advice in achieving the proximity principle, whereby there is a presumption that all schemes will be located close to the source of the waste and will be of an appropriate scale.

Question reference: S3W-09132

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what its interpretation is of the proximity principle.

Paragraph 2.1.2 of the current National Waste Plan says: The proximity and self-sufficiency principles require waste to be dealt with as close as possible to where it is produced. It is European Union policy that individual Member States should deal with their own waste, avoiding export to other countries. Scotland aims to follow this principle. However, it is acknowledged that dealing with all waste within Scotland may not be possible and may not always be the best solution. Scotland also aims to follow the proximity principle as far as possible at area waste planning level, although there may clear benefits from joint infrastructure solutions between areas. (http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/nws/guidance/national_plan_2003.pdf)

Question reference: S3W-07606

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 24 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what residential properties and commercial premises are at risk of (a) river and (b) coastal flooding, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested isset out in the following tables.

Table1, Properties Inside 1/200 Fluvial Flood Zone, by Local Authority

				Fluvial Flooding (Properties Affected)
Local Authority	Area (KM2)	Properties	Prop/Area	Commercial	Dwelling	Properties	Properties (%)
Aberdeen City	186	114,265	615	176	865	1,041	0.9
Aberdeenshire	6,318	108,927	17	135	1,982	2,117	1.9
Angus	2,185	54,807	25	86	935	1,021	1.9
Argyll and Bute	7,008	48,754	7	49	553	602	1.2
Clackmannanshire	159	23,315	147	46	1,082	1,128	4.8
Dumfries and Galloway	6,437	73,683	11	119	1,522	1,641	2.2
Dundee City	60	75,528	1,264	24	290	314	0.4
East Ayrshire	1,270	56,373	44	310	3,107	3,417	6.1
East Dunbartonshire	175	45,343	260	271	1,608	1,879	4.1
East Lothian	679	43,806	64	120	767	887	2.0
East Renfrewshire	174	37,852	218	44	807	851	2.2
Edinburgh City	263	240,849	915	386	6,278	6,664	2.8
Eilean Siar	3,098	14,134	5	2	72	74	0.5
Falkirk	297	71,255	240	108	4,181	4,289	6.0
Fife	1,325	172,183	130	142	2,250	2,392	1.4
Glasgow City	175	309,626	1,773	241	11,508	11,749	3.8
Highland	26,162	112,167	4	255	2,021	2,276	2.0
Inverclyde	162	40,985	253	68	552	620	1.5
Midlothian	355	35,669	100	19	332	351	1.0
Moray	2,238	43,036	19	268	3,239	3,507	8.1
North Ayrshire	885	67,320	76	267	3,264	3,531	5.2
North Lanarkshire	472	149,424	316	38	1,152	1,190	0.8
Orkney Islands	1,012	10,339	10	2	14	16	0.2
Perth and Kinross	5,384	69,917	13	321	3,671	3,992	5.7
Renfrewshire	262	85,344	326	313	4,680	4,993	5.9
Scottish Borders	4,739	57,003	12	577	4,128	4,705	8.3
Shetland Islands	1,467	10,674	7	8	7	15	0.1
South Ayrshire	1,224	55,497	45	40	764	804	1.4
South Lanarkshire	1,774	143,923	81	68	1,085	1,153	0.8
Stirling	2,253	40,623	18	87	2,909	2,996	7.4
West Dunbartonshire	177	45,541	257	216	2,110	2,326	5.1
West Lothian	429	74,906	175	15	757	772	1.0
Scotland	78,805	2,533,068	32	4,821	68,492	73,313	2.9

Table 2, Properties Inside 1/200Coastal Flood Zone, by Local Authority

				Fluvial Flooding (Properties Affected)
Local Authority	Area (KM2)	Properties	Prop/Area	Commercial	Dwelling	Properties	Properties (%)
Aberdeen City	186	114,265	615	30	44	74	0.1
Aberdeenshire	6,318	108,927	17	67	379	446	0.4
Angus	2,185	54,807	25	51	857	908	1.7
Argyll and Bute	7,008	48,754	7	241	1202	1,443	3.0
Clackmannanshire	159	23,315	147	2	19	21	0.1
Dumfries and Galloway	6,437	73,683	11	36	362	398	0.5
Dundee City	60	75,528	1,264	134	1013	1,147	1.5
East Ayrshire	1,270	56,373	44	0	0	0	0.0
East Dunbartonshire	175	45,343	260	0	0	0	0.0
East Lothian	679	43,806	64	78	2360	2,438	5.6
East Renfrewshire	174	37,852	218	0	0	0	0.0
Edinburgh City	263	240,849	915	190	1681	1,871	0.8
Eilean Siar	3,098	14,134	5	53	389	442	3.1
Falkirk	297	71,255	240	169	6046	6,215	8.7
Fife	1,325	172,183	130	123	1408	1,531	0.9
Glasgow City	175	309,626	1,773	18	1434	1,452	0.5
Highland	26,162	112,167	4	276	1024	1,300	1.2
Inverclyde	162	40,985	253	52	488	540	1.3
Midlothian	355	35,669	100	0	0	0	0.0
Moray	2,238	43,036	19	9	108	117	0.3
North Ayrshire	885	67,320	76	49	683	732	1.1
North Lanarkshire	472	149,424	316	3	2	5	0.0
Orkney Islands	1,012	10,339	10	52	274	326	3.2
Perth and Kinross	5,384	69,917	13	3	69	72	0.1
Renfrewshire	262	85,344	326	104	1276	1,380	1.6
Scottish Borders	4,739	57,003	12	23	47	70	0.1
Shetland Islands	1,467	10,674	7	60	66	126	1.2
South Ayrshire	1,224	55,497	45	204	1275	1,479	2.7
South Lanarkshire	1,774	143,923	81	20	77	97	0.1
Stirling	2,253	40,623	18	3	248	251	0.6
West Dunbartonshire	177	45,541	257	179	1121	1,300	2.9
West Lothian	429	74,906	175	0	0	0	0.0
Scotland	78,805	2,533,068	32	2,229	23,952	26,181	1.0

Despite the accuracy of the figuresin this report, they should be used as indicative, and not definitive, as they arebased on an Indicative Flood Map. The limitations of this map are:

Discontinuityof the fluvial outline, due to tributaries not joining up;

Misalignmentbetween datasets, due to projection errors;

DTMerrors, due to complex automated land cover removal, and

Methodologylimitation.

The number of potentially affectedproperties is based on the estimated number of postal entries at the time of releaseof the OS Address Layer 2 dataset (April 2006) and is likely to have a high degreeof variability.

The coastline of Scotland usedin this analysis is the Ordnance Survey Boundary Line 2005 high-water mark coastline.Although it is unlikely that there are any properties located outside this coastline,the land surface between the low-water mark and the high-water mark can be considerablein places. The coastal flood zone produced by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency does include this lands surface as well as some sea area.In the calculations, these areas were not included as coastal flood zone, or asland surface.

Other points of concern are:

Exclusionof non-postal entries in the OS Address Layer 2 dataset.

Indicativemap at scale 1/50k, not suitable to use for individual properties.

Interaction between fluvial andcoastal is not included.

Question reference: S3W-07895

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 24 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been budgeted for the next three years for new woodland planting to benefit wildlife through the Scottish Rural Development Plan.

The 2007-13 Scotland Rural DevelopmentProgramme includes an allocation of £170 million for woodland creation. This equatesto an annual allocation for woodland creation in the region of £24 million. Allof this funding will be delivered through measures under Axis 2 of theprogramme. These are focussed on environmental enhancements which, across a widerange of situations, will deliver direct benefits for Scotland’s wildlife and naturalhabitats.

Question reference: S3W-08007

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 18 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made since May 2007 in dealing with the sewerage odour nuisance from the Seafield sewage works in Edinburgh.

Good progress has been made.Scottish Water and Stirling Water (the PFI company responsible for theoperations at Seafield Waste Water Treatment Works) are complying with theStatutory Code of Practice, as determined by the regulators, the City of Edinburgh Council.

The prerequisite odour managementplan is in place. An odour improvement plan was submitted at the end of March2007 and is in the final stages of review by the City of Edinburgh Council. The outcome of this review will determine the capital work programmefor odour minimisation to ensure future compliance with the Statutory Code ofPractice.

Question reference: S3W-07896

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 11 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what criteria have been established for the forestry sales proposed in the budget which are intended to raise £15 million for reinvestment in woodlands.

The national forest estatehas been subject to a portfolio analysis, objectively assessing each part of the estate against delivery of economic, social and environmental benefits.This analysis will be used to determine priorities for sale of national forestland which contributes little to the delivery of Forestry Commission Scotland’sobjectives. Details of the process will be published in the new year as part ofa consultation on the framework strategic plan for the national forest estate.

Question reference: S3W-07963

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 10 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that there are any lessons to be learnt, in light of the conclusions of the independent review into the summer flooding in England and Wales by Sir Michael Pitt.

Scotland was fortunate not to experience the widespread floodingsuffered by England and Wales, but that the Scottish Government recognise that Scotland toocan learn lessons from the floods. The Scottish Government has noted the interim findings and recommendationsof Sir Michael Pitt’s review into the summer 2007 flooding in England. The Scottish Government will consider the recommendations,and the final review findings published next summer, in the context of flood riskand flood response in Scotland.

Question reference: S3W-07605

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 21 December 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what the costings and timescales are for each flood prevention scheme that councils have indicated that they wish to pursue which is not yet under construction or ready for construction.

Local authoritiesprovided the following information on a number of possible flood prevention schemesthat they report were under consideration; there is no guarantee that any of theseschemes will be pursued. The only firm information we have is on those schemes thatwere already under development and which have been taken into consideration in thefunding included in the block grant to local authorities. Following the spendingreview, funding is a matter for the authorities concerned.

Council	FP Scheme	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	Later Years	Total £000
Aberdeenshire	Tarland	200	2,000	2,000	700	5,000
Aberdeenshire	Fettercairn	150	0	0	0	300
Angus	Brechin, River St	3,320	2,860	100	0	7,700
Angus	Brothock Burn, Abroath	300	600	600	0	1,500
Angus	Gairie Burn, Kirriemuir	0	110	390	0	500
Angus	Barry Burn, Carnoustie	0	0	0	1,500	1,500
Argyll and Bute	Milton Burn, Dunoon	1,700	300	0	0	2,000
Argyll and Bute	Campbeltown	800	200	0	0	1,000
Argyll and Bute	Midge Lane, Strone	0	500	200	0	700
Argyll and Bute	Antrim View, Port Ellen, Islay	0	300	200	0	500
Borders	Selkirk	200	7,000	7,900	0	15,200
Borders	Galashiels	30	200	80	0	350
Borders	Jedburgh	80	100	330	900	1,500
Dumfries & Galloway	Stranraer	50	650	650	0	1,400
Dumfries & Galloway	Moffat	0	0	400	400	800
Dundee City	Central Waterfront	0	45	30	2,675	2,750
Dundee City	Riverside Avenue	0	0	0	5,000	5,000
Dundee City	Dundee Airport	0	0	0	5,000	5,000
Dundee City	Dighty Water	0	0	50	300	350
Dundee City	Fithie Burn	0	0	25	225	250
Falkirk	Chapel Burn (RSNH)	0	950	800	0	1,750
Falkirk	Grangemouth	0	0	2,000	0	2,000
Fife	Kinness Burn, St Andrews	50	70	1,220	0	1,400
Highland	Thurso	5	25	25	1,015	1,100
Highland	River Ness	100	0	0	2,800	3,000
Highland	Dell Burn, Inverness	30	0	0	1,140	1,200
Highland	Mill Burn, Inverness	30	0	0	430	480
Highland	Culloden	5	15	25	30	200
Highland	Fort William & Caol	100	0	0	7,300	7,500
Highland	Drumnadroichit	20	0	0	690	760
Highland	Acharacle	5	5	5	5	25
Moray	Forres (R Findhorn/Pilmuir)	10,000	25,000	6,000	0	41,000
North Ayrshire	Kilbirnie, Glengarnock & Dalry	2,000	9,000	0	0	11,000
North Ayrshire	Kilwinning	0	0	5,000	0	5,000
North Ayrshire	Millport	0	0	0	1,100	1,100
North Ayrshire	Adrossan, South Bay	0	0	0	500	500
South Lanarkshire	Strathaven Rd, Hamilton	0	850	1,390	0	2,240
South Lanarkshire	Lady Watson Gardens, Hamilton	0	0	500	1,000	1,500
West Dunbartonshire	Gruggies Burn	0	313	5,000	6,688	12,000
West Dunbartonshire	River Leven	0	0	250	17,750	18,000
	Total	19,175	51,593	35,670	56,148	165,055

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