Licencing and Removal of Weirs

Consideration of the licencing and enforcement regimes in respect of redundant weirs and structures in Scottish rivers.

Second review of SEPA’s progress in implementing its barrier removal programme.

Case Reference: IESS.21.015

September 2024

 
 

Licencing and Removal of Weirs – Second Review of Progress – September 2024 – IESS.21.015.pdf

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  • Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience
  • 30 September 2024

Background

During Environmental Standards Scotland’s (ESS’) pre-investigation work on the licencing of barriers in Scottish rivers, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) provided an implementation plan, staged across five years, indicating how barrier removal or easement of river structures would take place. The plan was developed in early 2022 by SEPA in accordance with Scotland’s Third River Basin Management Plan, which the Scottish Government laid in the Scottish Parliament in December 2021.

 

Given that SEPA’s plan, at that point, was relatively new, ESS decided to monitor and engage with SEPA on its implementation of the various stages of the plan. ESS’ first review of progress found that SEPA’s implementation programme was, by March 2023, largely back on track. This update sets out SEPA’s progress against the plan between March 2023 and April 2024.

 

This update should be read in conjunction with previous briefings which can be found at: Licencing and Removal of Weirs Summary Report – Environmental Standards Scotland and Licencing and Removal of Weirs – May 2023 Progress Update – Environmental Standards Scotland.

  • Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience
  • 30 September 2024

Assessment outcome

The following table sets out SEPA’s planned activity for year 2023/2024 and what was delivered.

 

Stage Planned activity Delivered activity
Stage 0 no action 42 91
Stage 1 screening 117 104
Stage 2 licensing and design 115 98
Stage 3 build 11 4
Stage 4 completed 3 6

 

SEPA advised that a further 104 barriers had been identified following fish ecology fieldwork and from the rebuild of databases lost during a cyber-attack suffered in 2020. As these additional barriers represent a significant increase to the 244 barriers originally identified within the implementation plan, ESS made enquiries with SEPA to understand how it planned to manage the additional barriers, and how this would impact on compliance. ESS also enquired whether any further significant increases in the number of barriers to be included in the plan was anticipated.

 

SEPA advised that it expects the numbers of barriers identified to have stabilised, and that it does not anticipate any further significant additions. SEPA also provided the following revised progress update profile, which sets out its assessment of current and future progress on the barrier removal project (see Table below).

 

April 2024 April 2025 April 2026 Apr 2027 December 2027
Stage 0 – no action required 82 137 137 137 137
Stage 1 – screening 139 0 0 0 0
Stage 2 – licensing and design 101 146 71 34 5
Stage 3 – build 4 34 80 51 21
Stage 4 -works complete 22 31 64 126 185
  • Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience
  • 30 September 2024

Conclusion

From the information supplied by SEPA it appears that, other than the barriers at the build stage, it has largely completed the work scheduled for 2023/24.

 

SEPA has also incorporated the recently discovered barriers into its implementation plan. ESS notes that the forthcoming year involves a transition from the screening to the licencing and design stage and a significant increase in the number of barriers at the build stage.

 

ESS will assess SEPA’s progress against the programme again in April 2025.

 

September 2024

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