Lib Dems secure U-turn from Scottish Government on sewage dumping guidance

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today secured a U-turn from the Scottish Government as it announced that it will begin to rewrite its outdated rules on sewage dumping.

At First Minister's Questions earlier this month, Alex Cole-Hamilton highlighted the lack of consequences for sewage dumping in Scotland - a scandal hindered by decades old guidance that the Scottish Government has been refusing to update.

Responding to a written parliamentary question, the Scottish Government has now confirmed that it will "seek to review and revise the current guidance in the coming months" around the circumstances that it believes sewage dumping should be allowed.

Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

“Instead of facing up to Scotland’s sewage scandal, the SNP Government has ducked, deflected and even defied its own environmental watchdog’s demand to update its messy dumping guidance.

“The promise to rewrite the guidance is a U-turn from the SNP Government, but the devil will be in the detail.

“The problem is nobody in the SNP seems to care that the government-owned water company dumped sewage into Scotland’s rivers and beaches at least 24,400 times last year.

"To turn the tide on the sewage scandal, Scottish Liberal Democrats have published plans for a Clean Water Act that would bring our sewage network into the 21st century, clamp down on dumping and get to the bottom of this disgusting practice."