Sewerage capacity affects planning decisions

The Royal Town Planning Institute said that only 14% of land approved for development can be built on because sewerage provision has hit capacity.

It said Scottish Water was being given a veto on proposals, even when they had been approved by ministers.

However, the environment minister said investment was under way to bring the system up to scratch.

Graham U-Ren, of the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland, said the issue of sewerage was proving a barrier to developers.

"Of the total land which is allocated and approved in local plans across Scotland, only 14% of it is actually able to be serviced by Scottish Water," he went on.

There are far stricter environmental regulations that clearly has a knock-on for development because it reduces the capacity of our sewer system Atholl Duncan Scottish Water

Mr U-Ren said the Scottish Executive, which is due to review the situation, should consider new legislation giving greater priority to planning in water service provision.

Perth Council convener Jimmy Doig said a development of affordable housing, new schools and businesses units was stopped in its tracks last month because of the absence of sewerage.

He said: "There's the consultation exercise, public inquiries, Scottish Water informed along with the Scottish Executive.

"You get the plans through and all of a sudden, chop, Scottish Water take a decision, 'finit'."

Mr Finnie said the review would look at this "growing development constraint problem".

He said: "Scottish Water are not deliberately frustrating anything. Scottish Water has actually embarked upon the largest ever investment programme in their water network.

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"I think the priority is public health and if you have an under-invested infrastructure that is not meeting drinking water quality standards and is not meeting sewage effluent standards, I think the executive and Scottish Water are quite right to be spending �1.8bn on remedying that."

Scottish Water said tighter environmental regulations had reduced the amount of waste it could put into the system and it had been working to deal with issue.

However, it said that in relation to the Perth development, it has been given permission to expand to meet the demands of the immediate development issues.

Spokesman Atholl Duncan said that a lot had changed since many local plans were put in place.

He said: "A lot of promises that were made in years gone by, by the former authorities, can't now be guaranteed.

"There are far stricter environmental regulations that clearly has a knock-on for development because it reduces the capacity of our sewer system.

"We can't fix decades of problems overnight but we're working very closely with councils so that they have clarity on where they can and can't develop."