Hundreds of improvement projects are planned

Scottish Water is aiming to deliver cleaner beaches and coastlines and better quality drinking water while also reducing the risk of flooding.

The 1,500 projects which will be rolled out over the next three years will create thousands of construction jobs.

The quango has described the work as one of the biggest water investment programmes for decades.

The announcement has been made only weeks after senior managers came under attack for receiving bonuses of more than �180,000 for improving performance in the first year of Scottish Water's existence.

Water quality

The payments were made amid criticism over soaring bills, poor quality services and health scares.

Scottish National Party environment spokesperson Roseanna Cunningham claimed the announcement would prove a convenient PR boost, but was merely necessary work.

Better quality drinking water is among the targets

"It's certainly a big investment programme but it's an investment programme that is way long overdue," she said.

"We've had a century of neglect of our water industry and what we are seeing now is the kind of money that should have been ploughed into the industry over a long period of time."

Geoff Aitkenhead, asset management director of Scottish Water, insists the programme of work is the most significant to be undertaken for many years.

Mr Aitkenhead told Good Morning Scotland: "This is very much the first stage in modernising the worn out infrastructure of the water industry and redressing decades of under-investment.

"The key thing here is that this is about benefits for customers, it is long overdue, we have the means to get on with the programme and we have the expertise to deliver the programme in a cost efficient way."

On the issue of bonuses he added: "Scottish Water as a business is driven by performance and that is incentivised within the business."

�1.8bn would have bought more eight years ago than it will buy today Dave Watson, Unison

Some of the new work has been prompted by new EU regulations on water quality.

The creation of a new construction company, Scottish Water Solutions, will generate up to 8,000 jobs.

The projects planned include the replacement of 1,600 miles of leaking pipework and the upgrade of 250 miles of sewers at a cost of �100m.

Dave Watson, from the public service union Unison, said the investment programme was better than doing nothing.

But he argued that more would have been possible for the same amount of cash if things had been tackled earlier.

Significant start

"We're in the crazy position that all utilities have been in that once they're organisationally changed they rapidly downsize and skills are lost in the industry," said Mr Watson.

"We now have to recruit those skills and as a result there's an increased cost - this means �1.8bn would have bought more eight years ago than it will buy today."

Scottish Water said the programme was a significant start towards tackling the country's historical under-investment.