MSP Calls For Executive To Bring SEPA To Heel On Road Planings

Banff & Buchan SNP MSP Stewart Stevenson has written to Ross Finnie urging him to intervene over bizarre rules which mean SEPA (the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) wants to charge farmers for using tar planings from roadworks to repair their tracks.

SEPA cite the Waste Management Licensing Regulations as justification for charging farmers £58 for using small amounts of tar planings to repair tracks, but their equivalent in England and Wales – the Environment Agency – has adopted a common-sense approach and waived the requirement in anticipation of the UK Government changing the law before next June.

SNP MSP Mr Stevenson had the issue raised with him at Turriff Show and pledged to investigate. He said:

“This is a quite ridiculous state of affairs. On the one hand, Government is trying to promote a message of “re-use and recycle”, yet on the other, SEPA are using legislation to justify imposing even more costs and bureaucracy onto farmers with the very real consequence that tar planings which would have been used to mend a farm track may end up in a landfill site.

“Meanwhile, the Environment Agency south of the border is taking the common-sense approach of waiving the costs and registration involved in anticipation of the law being changed next year, and I commend them on this approach.

“I have raised this with SEPA but they claim that a change in law is needed if they are to follow the Environment Agency’s good example. I have therefore asked Ross Finnie to intervene in an attempt to clarify the position and bring forward any amendments needed to legislation so that SEPA can be put back in their box on this issue.

“It really should never have got to this stage and could quite easily have been avoided had SEPA not viewed this as another opportunity to maximise its income.”
Categories [Environment and Rural Development]