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Our next item of business is an evidence session as part of our follow-up inquiry into salmon farming in Scotland. Today’s session is about marine spatial planning and consenting processes. We have around 90 minutes for the discussion. I welcome to the meeting Mark Harvey, who is from the planning team in Highland Council, and Ronan O’Hara, who is the chief executive of the Crown Estate Scotland. Rachel Shucksmith, who is the marine spatial planning manager at the University of the Highlands and Islands, joins us remotely.
I also welcome Edward Mountain MSP, who will be taking part in the discussion. Mr Mountain, do you have any interests to declare?
Thank you, convener. Yes, I do. I would like to remind members that I have an interest in a wild salmon fishery on the River Spey, which is on the east coast of Scotland. It is not affected by fish farms along the east coast, and it employs three full-time people. I think that that has probably covered it. Any other details that anyone wants are in my entry in the register of members’ interests.
Thank you.
I will kick off. We have a number of themes and our first is “Reforming consenting—towards a single framework”. How has the planning and consenting regime for salmon farms changed since the publication of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee report?
The biggest change is that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency recently became the main regulator for wild fish interactions—largely to do with sea lice interactions with wild fish. That is quite a big difference as far as planners are concerned.
We gave considerable attention to that area and initiated the use of environmental management plans, which basically encouraged a system of wild fish monitoring as a way of assessing impacts. That was successful in terms of getting fish farm interests, operators, fishery boards and river trusts talking to one another and discussing ways of monitoring, but it left a lot to be desired scientifically and in relation to effectiveness.
The movement of SEPA into that role, and SEPA going about it in the way that SEPA does—with scientific, evidence-based procedures—is a big change and probably the biggest one from planners’ point of view.
The Crown Estate Scotland is a public corporation but not a regulator in the traditional definition. We come at this very much from the perspective of a landlord managing the seabed asset on behalf of the people of Scotland. My team continues to collaborate and work in a fashion that supports the changes that are being progressed, as described by Mark Harvey, and we will continue to actively contribute and add value where we can.
Dr Shucksmith, what do you believe are the current challenges around aquaculture planning and consenting, and what further improvements would help the current regime to address them?
From my perspective as a marine planner, I imagine that a greater roll-out of regional marine planning was expected by now, which might have influenced the development of aquaculture and other industries in our marine regions, particularly in the Highlands and Islands. That process has probably been slower than anticipated.
Orkney is currently consulting on its regional marine plan, and we are hoping that the Shetland plan will be adopted by ministers before the end of this financial year. That might provide a greater steer for aquaculture development in future and help to reduce conflicts.
One of the REC Committee’s key recommendations was that there should be a more integrated and co-ordinated framework approach to consenting. One of the consenting task group’s solutions was to pilot a four-stage process. What is your experience of that? Is it working? What are your thoughts on the four-stage process?
I imagine that there will be regional differences. In different parts of Scotland, there are greater levels of conflict in relation to development, but in the region where I live, there is less objection to and conflict with aquaculture.
On whether the process is working, we are not a statutory consultee for aquaculture development. That is different from other forms of marine licensing—we are a statutory consultee for everything else that requires a marine licence but not for aquaculture. We are not directly involved in providing a response unless the issue falls within the pre-application criteria, in which case we become a statutory consultee. That is a difference, or perhaps an oversight, in the process.
Mark Harvey, what are your views on the four-stage process?
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To be honest, our experience is that we are at both ends of the pole. Recently, we have been involved in a pilot programme for co-ordinating pre-application discussions between us and SEPA. That reflects SEPA’s primary role in regulation now, although the planning authorities are still important in the planning application process. That programme has been quite detailed; it has made good progress and so far is regarded as a success and an improvement.
To reflect on what Rachel Shucksmith said, if we regard pre-apps as a tactical approach, I do not think that we have made huge progress with strategic marine planning. It is fair to say that we do not treat the marine environment—or our patch of it in Highland—in the same way that we treat the terrestrial environment.
Ronan O’Hara, do you believe that the Crown Estate, as part of the consenting group, had a sufficient mandate to tackle the challenges that we have just touched on?
When I reflect on the vires under which the Crown Estate Scotland operates and our remit to maintain and seek to enhance the value of the Scottish Crown estate—and, in doing so, to advance sustainable development—I think that our contribution to the process as a whole is very much to bookend it: at the beginning to provide an option, and, at the end, when others have exercised their expertise in matters such as regulation, consenting and spatial planning, to rely on that information and evidence to inform our decision in stepping into a lease.
Our perspective is shaped by that context, so our contribution has not been fettered, and we continue to contribute to and support the attempts and efforts to have a more effective and efficient process from start to finish.
Both the Griggs review and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee inquiry recommended that Marine Scotland should act as the overarching body with regard to consenting. Is that being considered? If so, would it be beneficial?
As I said, what has happened is that SEPA has become the main regulator. Regulation is a nitty-gritty, detailed process, so SEPA was well positioned to take on that sort of work, perhaps more so than Marine Scotland. That said, the sea lice framework was very much a joint project between Marine Scotland, as a scientific body, and SEPA.
Marine Scotland might be able to take regulation forward in a way that focuses on one regulator, but please do not ask me how that would come about in a practical sense. Over the years, we have realised that the remits for planning, SEPA and Marine Scotland—with its various branches, such as the fish health inspectorate—are varied and eclectic, and it is difficult to bind all of that together into one discipline.
As is the case with most forms of change or development, there are benefits and disbenefits. The concept of a lead agency or actor has value and merit but, based on my understanding of the existing process, a variety of skills and expertise reside in different localities. For example, the role of Mark Harvey and his team allows the local community voice to really come through in the process. Whatever approach is ultimately settled on, we need to be cautious of not losing facets or attributes that currently add value.
Would you agree that SEPA is better placed than Marine Scotland?
I am not sure that I could give a categoric answer to that here and now.
On the roles of the different regulators and consenting authorities, planning permission from a local authority, such as Highland Council or Shetland Islands Council, is needed at present, and planning sits under a different legal framework from marine licensing. As Highland Council has highlighted, the result would be differences in how we manage applications. For instance, pre-application consultation is embedded in the planning process—in my area, it is well used by aquaculture developers of all sizes. However, that process might be more challenging for Marine Scotland to deliver in a more remote setting and it is not legally embedded in the marine licensing process. Similarly, the role of monitoring for compliance—for example, whether a site remains well lit or is in the place that was consented—is undertaken not by Marine Scotland but by a local authority.
If we were to move from the planning side to the marine licensing side, there would be differences in the process. Some might be positive but some could be negative.
Do you feel that things are okay as they are, with SEPA apparently taking a lead, or do you believe that the role should be given to local authorities? Do local authorities have the most important part of the consenting process?
SEPA and local authorities lead on different parts of the consenting process, and both are important. SEPA is the competent authority when it comes to looking at biological impacts but it does not have a remit to look at impacts on communities—or, rather, on users—in the same way. It might be challenging, therefore, to move something such as aquaculture to a single consenting process.
Are you saying that we have more to gain through the system that we have in place rather than trying to streamline further, because we would lose elements if we did that?
Just to follow up on that, the argument often jumps between whether there should be a single entity—a single consenting body and, possibly, a single consent to aquaculture—or whether there just needs to be better co-ordination between the different disciplines that Rachel Shucksmith has highlighted. The latter is probably where we are now—there is room for better co-ordination. The recent pre-app pilot project was about how we can achieve a higher level of co-ordination between the different regulators without losing the nature or the essence of what they do and why regulation is in the hands of the body where it sits.
Okay. Rachel, would you agree with that?
Yes. Exactly as Mark has explained, it is more about stronger co-ordination being perhaps necessary rather than giving the role to a single body, as each body brings something quite different to the licensing and consenting process.
To pick up on that, I note that both Mark Harvey and Rachel Shucksmith mentioned stronger co-ordination, so what kinds of things have you seen change or do you think need to change to improve that co-ordination?
That is a good question. The pre-app project identified quite a lot of areas. Achieving co-ordination was a more complicated project than one would have imagined at the outset. There is an advantage to the regulatory structures processes happening in parallel, but plenty of arguments against that exist as well, in that it is quite difficult for operators to move through the system in parallel.
However, probably the biggest outcome from effective co-ordination would be to allow that to happen, whereby the processes for planning, the controlled activities regulations licence and the marine licence would be more in parallel than they are at the moment. The overlapping issues would then be discussed at the right point—the most effective point—which does not always happen at the moment.
Rachel Shucksmith, have you anything to add?
Not specifically, other than to note that, in Shetland, the local authority has established working groups between interested parties—for instance, between aquaculture and fisheries—to improve co-ordination. There are regular meetings now between the sectors, which is a positive development.
Before we move on from this section of questions, I have a final one for Mark Harvey and Rachel Shucksmith.
The recommendations were made by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee back in 2018, and the Scottish Government now says in its programme for government that one of its objectives is to “Improve the consenting process”. That suggests that the pace of change has not been good enough, given that the Government wants to see an increase in the economic impact of fish farms. Over the past eight years, have we failed to deliver the recommendations of the committee?
It has been slow. It is also relatively complicated. A lot of science went on in the background of SEPA’s work on its framework for wild fish interactions, and it built on science that was already going on, so, arguably, when the framework was introduced, there could well have been nearly eight years’ worth of work behind it, which was not necessarily initiated immediately on the back of the committee’s recommendations but was there anyway.
Such things are slow, and could be criticised for that. However, if in trying to reform a system you bring together a large organisation such as SEPA and several local authorities—and the marine directorate, with its complicated structure on top—that is bureaucratically difficult. That perhaps reflects on the multiregulatory issue: it is difficult to reform as well as to work with.
Rachel Shucksmith, do you have any comments on the pace of change?
Obviously, public bodies have been through a challenging time since 2018. Consenting processes are slow; in and of itself, a consent might take several years from start to finish. Although it seems to be quite a long period of time, particularly for those who seek change, implementing a change and having statutory consultation times within that will always take a number of years. Therefore, although the period of time is long, that is probably unsurprising when it comes to wholesale change.
We move to our next theme, which is strategic spatial planning.
Good morning. Has spatial planning progressed since 2018, and what opportunities could there be to incorporate aquaculture into the progress of spatial planning as we move forward with the new national marine plan?
My overarching sense is that, across all forms of usage and not just aquaculture, I have definitely observed advancements and developments in spatial planning—particularly so in relation to the non-aquaculture aspects. For example, I cite the work that we have progressed in the marine data exchange, which seeks to build transparency, with more information and the use of technology, to ensure that spatial planning is supported and informed.
However, there is still opportunity for people, technology, data and systems to be used in effective and efficient ways to enable forward-looking decision making. Ultimately, there is an opportunity to use an incredibly valuable resource in the most effective and efficient way to benefit society and the economy. We must ensure that we do that in an environmentally considered fashion.
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Would you like there to be an emphasis on spatial planning, considering the balance between socioeconomic benefits and climate benefits such as the biodiversity and climate change goals that the Government hopes to achieve through the national marine plan?
Without a doubt. That is more than a wish for Crown Estate Scotland. We are a creature of statute, and our statute requires us to pursue an economic agenda and, at the same time, balance the tension constructively with our obligations to advance sustainable development in the broader sense—social, economic and environmental. We welcome any innovations or advances that aid us in that agenda.
Mark Harvey, I think that you talked about bureaucracy in some of the statutory delivery. Am I right in saying that you thought that it was a bit burdensome—although I am not sure that you used that word?
Yes. The co-ordination is burdensome.
Does that translate to the role that the marine directorate will play? Ronan O’Hara has just spoken about how we can use technology and data to improve biodiversity, address climate change and increase socioeconomic benefits. Do you see opportunity for that in the next national marine plan? Have we made progress since 2018?
There has been slow progress, or slow movement, at least, in a certain direction. I would argue—this is my personal view—that progress is overdue. Aquaculture moved into the planning remit in 2007. Certainly in the Highlands, and my colleagues in other aquacultural authorities would probably say the same, we have yet to treat the portion of the marine environment that falls within our control in the same way as we do our terrestrial areas. We do not include it in our local plans in quite the same way; we do not apply constraints; we do not cross-check identification of better or less attractive areas for certain forms of development; and we do not incorporate leases from the Crown Estate into a mapping system and so forth.
I feel that movement in that direction is overdue, and it would be helpful. You mentioned bureaucracy and, sadly, this will be another plan to take into account. From a planner’s perspective, a local response to the national marine plan is the direction in which we should be going, but that has not happened.
I move to Rachel Shucksmith. The Marine Conservation Society told the committee that the regional marine plans in the Clyde and in Shetland have been delayed for years. What effect could a lack of marine planning potentially be having on those areas?
There are two parts to that. Our Shetland plan went out for consultation at the end of 2019. We hope that it will be formally adopted this year, although the Shetland Islands Council already uses it as a material consideration in consenting. The implementation phase of the marine plan, rather than the writing phase, is where it is most likely to be effective. Ultimately, the delays have meant that we have not moved to the implementation phase.
Within that phase, rather than in the plan-making stage, I see a wealth of opportunity to reduce conflicts, because any plan is only as good as the use that is made of it. In Shetland, we are very much looking forward to moving to the implementation phase to be able to support developers and communities to ensure that the marine environment is used in the most sustainable manner, and to provide further information and support to do that, which, at the moment, it has not been possible to do in the way that we would have liked.
What do you believe are the main issues with the current marine spatial strategy? How do you think that those issues affect salmon farming in Scotland?
For aquaculture generally in Scotland, one of the challenges compared with, say, England is that we have an incredibly extensive sea area, but there are an awful lot of different considerations to take into account, including our rich fishing history and our wide biodiversity. Despite those constraints, there is still a lot of opportunity for development in that space. For renewable energy and aquaculture, which both increasingly occur in the offshore environment rather than inshore, being able to provide meaningful guidance that does not rapidly go out of date as technology changes will always be a challenge.
For the renewables sector, that has proven to be a challenge, as we are now looking at floating offshore wind versus static, fixed wind turbines. In aquaculture, the advancement to offshore aquaculture could mean that, if we go for a highly zoned approach, we review only on a five-year cycle, so that advice might not be as appropriate as initially perceived. When we use a constraint-mapping approach, yet another challenge can be that those constraints can be mitigated. Therefore, a very strongly zoned approach might not necessarily identify the most appropriate areas as those technological improvements and advancements are made.
In Shetland, we have never adopted a strongly zoned approach for that reason, so that we can try to be more adaptive and responsive to change. We have tried to ensure that we provide as much data as possible on socioeconomic and environmental considerations and that we provide a policy framework to guide development to reflect the local context rather than going for a highly zoned and spatially managed approach.
However, for other areas, that might be a more appropriate option. In many parts of Scotland, we have this extensive area rather than intensive activity like you might see around England, for instance.
I have a quick follow-up question. You are saying, in a way, that you might agree with John Goodlad, chair of the salmon interactions working group, who said that it would be easier for the consenting regime to be “attuned to being flexible”, and to allow fish farms to move offshore away from the mouth of the river. Currently, are the regional marine plans flexible enough, and how do they fit in with the national marine plan?
A regional marine plan goes out to 12 miles, so, regardless of whether a fish farm is in a loch or offshore, it would still be within the remit of a marine plan. The regional marine plans do not need to take a zoning approach and nor does the national marine plan. Expecting a one-size-fits-all approach to management across Scotland is unrealistic, because it is very diverse. With sea lochs on the west coast of Scotland, the community structures are very different from, say, those in the Western Isles, Orkney or Shetland. Within that, it is important that the marine regions have freedom to develop a locally appropriate response, rather than having one approach for the whole of Scotland.
Does what Rachel Shucksmith has just said about flexibility ring true with you, Mark?
It makes a lot of sense, and it is a reminder to planners. Local plans take a long time to come into force and are not renewed to a rapid timescale. Rachel makes a good point that we have to come to terms with technological change in aquaculture all the time. It can change the way in which aquaculture interacts with constraints. I hear exactly what Rachel is saying. You do not want a rigid plan; it has to be flexible but still able to assist the industry, the public and planners in assessing where might be best for new technology to be located. We now have the possibility of aquaculture that is further offshore and of contained aquaculture, which might be more suitable in inland situations. We need to be aware of both of those and plan accordingly.
My question is on the siting of salmon farms. The policy outcome in national planning framework 4 states:
“New aquaculture development is in locations that reflect industry needs and considers environmental impacts.”
Is that being delivered? Could I start with you, Mark?
Yes, I hope that it is, as that is what I am paid for.
It is all about balancing those two things, which is difficult. With planning, we now put a great deal of weight on the responses from consultees, so our main remit now will be to do with visual impact, although I should add that noise is increasingly a constraint. We never appreciated that previously, but it is an issue where farms are close to dwellings. The work of SEPA and other regulators and the advice from NatureScot are absolutely critical considerations for us, and we have to take a weighted decision on the basis of that. It is not easy, and I do not envy our members, who often have to take those decisions. By and large, though, we get them right.
It is a difficult environment. I probably do not have to say this here in this particular building but, in circumstances where there is a requirement for politicians to take decisions, if an industry is in the kind of difficult public relations situation that it would, I think, be fair to say that the aquaculture industry is in at present, it makes for quite a difficult environment in which to take carefully weighted decisions on the basis of scientific constraints and so on. It is not easy. I hope that we get it right most of the time.
The marine environment is uniquely a public space, and all our regulators are, for a start, charged with a presumption in favour of development. Therefore, with any constraints, consideration must still be given to the right to develop within a space, while taking a proportionate approach. Within that, there will always be winners and losers. Most of the marine environment is appreciated or valued by someone, whether for fishing or for the scenic qualities, so it will always be a challenge to give a consent where nobody will be impacted. That is also true of building a new house or housing development. There will always be people who prefer the status quo, but that is not a reason not to consent. Dealing with the weight of those considerations is the role of the regulator or planning authority.
I have previously reviewed the decisions made by planning authorities. There will always be areas of contention between developers and communities or other users, and everyone will have a different view on whether the right balance is being struck between meeting the needs of industry and meeting the needs of other users. Therefore, it might be impossible to judge, because everyone will have a different view on whether the balance is correct, depending on whether they have been impacted or have benefited.
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I agree with what has been said. As far as the role of Crown Estate Scotland is concerned, we seek to draw from and rely on expert input from planning authorities, SEPA and others with regard to siting. On a more conceptual level, we recognise the difficulties. Equally, given our vires, we are keen to ensure that a sustainable balance is achieved between the community perspective and ensuring that an important industry for Scotland has access to the resources in question for the greater good and for national benefit. We recognise that that is challenging.
I have a slightly different question, which is about the income that Crown Estate Scotland derives from salmon farms. Can you give us an indication of what that is?
Pricing arrangements have been reviewed since 2022. The income that we derive is a function of production and market price, but since our inception—that is, between devolution in 2017 and the end of the financial year 2022—circa £50 million has been derived in rent. Of course, under the present arrangement, all those moneys are returned to Scottish consolidated fund, after which they are passed back through local government for use in the communities.
Thank you—that was helpful.
Before I go on to my main question, there is something that I am curious about. Mark, you mentioned that noise is increasingly becoming a consideration, but I also want to ask about smell, because I have been getting quite a bit of correspondence about the smell of fish farms.
I do not know whether that is a product of the change in aquaculture activities or whether it is the result of an increase in sensitivity to the activity itself—that is, to the existence of the fish farms. It is difficult to tell.
It is probably the case that more well boats are operating for longer periods of time around fish farms, which might explain the noise issue. In my experience, there is not a huge amount of evidence to identify where the smells are coming from. We have had a couple of cases, but I do not think that fish farms are inherently smelly, if I can put it that way. Obviously, there might well be instances in which problems occur. Of course, these days, people are very sensitive to environmental impacts, and they will quickly get on to their local authority if an incident occurs.
Is that an issue that you would take into consideration?
Yes. From a planning point of view, residential amenity is right at the heart of what we do. I raised my eyebrows because, when I started off in aquaculture, the issue was rarely raised. Now that it is raised much more frequently, it represents a genuine issue for us. It is a siting issue, of course, because noise and smell diminish with distance. Therefore, it could be argued that the further away a farm is from residential properties, the better, from a constraint perspective, but that will dictate some difficult siting questions.
Increasingly, there seems to be a noise issue with feed barges, as well as with well boats, from the tubes and the pellets moving through them.
There is always some inherent noise from farms, from diesel generators and so on. Sometimes, the feed moving through pipes can be noisy, although it depends on the design of the feed barge, because a lot of that activity can take place below deck and in acoustically sandwiched environments. Often, it is a matter of maintenance, but some odd atmospheric conditions can make the noise worse at times. Noise travels over water very differently from how it travels over land.
You mentioned NatureScot earlier. Do you, as a council and planning authority, think that you have access to sufficient guidance on how proposed sites or expansions might interact with priority marine features and marine protected areas? Do you get enough robust advice from NatureScot? Does NatureScot have a strong enough role in the planning process?
I will bring in Rachel Shucksmith on that issue, too. I know that she is not from a planning authority, but I would love to get her opinion.
We place a great deal of weight on the advice that we get from NatureScot. We trust and respect its advice, and our approach to the marine environment is the same as it is to the terrestrial environment.
It is important to note that NatureScot’s remit is to look at the national picture, so it is very focused on national impacts. In aquaculture, we come across most things most of the time. Priority marine features are a feature of most fish farm applications, and NatureScot’s advice helps us identify their scale. For example, a priority marine feature can sometimes cover a vast area of sea bed, while a fish farm affects a very small area of sea bed. In order to make our argument to the public and to members, we need such advice from NatureScot, and we get it. NatureScot also helps us with the habitats regulations appraisals that we are required to do. I am more than satisfied with the work that comes back from NatureScot; indeed, I do not think that we could do our work without it.
That is great.
I just wanted to clarify something. You have used the word “aquaculture” quite a bit, but I think that you are using it interchangeably with “salmon farms”. We are focusing on salmon farms, but aquaculture covers seaweed and shellfish farming, too.
Absolutely. I am sorry—planners tend to use the word in that way, because those farms are the bit of aquaculture that very much falls within our remit. There is also shellfish, but that matter usually presents us with a very different set of constraints and issues.
Rachel Shucksmith, what are your thoughts on getting sufficient guidance on the impact of proposed sites and expansions, and on how they interact with priority marine features and marine protected areas?
One of the challenges, as Mark Harvey said, is in understanding the extent of our priority marine features. The list was developed by NatureScot. Until that point, there had never been such comprehensive and clear guidance on what we wished to prioritise as a nation. The list incorporates habitats including maerl beds, which are, in effect, a non-renewable resource, and it includes species such as cod, which are not rare in and of themselves, although there are clear reasons for their being on the list.
When a developer, whether in relation to renewables or aquaculture, undertakes a baseline survey, it is not unlikely that they will come across some priority marine features, because some of the species are ubiquitous around our coast. With any decision, the challenge is in weighing up the individual and cumulative impacts on habitats or species and in considering whether the development will affect them at a national or a local scale.
That is where NatureScot is tasked with providing advice on national-scale impacts, not local-scale impacts, although there might be some nuance within that in certain localities. For instance, in Shetland, we have only one remaining seagrass bed; although it is not particularly extensive, it is locally protected because, at a local level, it is rare. On the other hand, we also have in Shetland extensive horse mussel beds all around our coast—well, we have horse mussels and patches of horse mussel beds—and that poses a challenge to our determining whether, even with a big aquaculture development, the scale of impact relative to the distribution of the species might be regarded as significant.
NatureScot provides a steer on whether issues are going to affect the national PMF at the national level. However, its remit does not include making decisions at a local level, which falls on the planning or consenting authority.
Do you think that something is missing there? If NatureScot is looking at national things and the responsibility for making the other decisions falls—to use your term—on the local authority, is something else needed, or are you satisfied with the local authority making that decision in that nuanced way?
In the past, NatureScot—or Scottish Natural Heritage, which preceded it—would have provided more local advice, but its remit now is to provide national advice, and I imagine that there will be variability across Scotland with regard to the effectiveness of that change. Obviously, in order to provide advice at a local level, people with diverse experience are needed, and NatureScot as an organisation has a vast array of expertise. I do not mean to say that it is not within a local authority’s capability to provide that advice; it is simply that the way in which things operate now is different to how they operated before 2010, when the organisation that became NatureScot provided a national and local steers.
Do you know why that change was made? Why did SNH move away from giving local steers?
Mark Harvey might be better placed to comment on that, but I believe that that was directed to by ministers to ensure that each authority commented on its own specific area. It was part of the streamlining process to avoid duplication of public bodies’ efforts. That is my recollection, but I am happy to be corrected.
Mark, you have been named.
I do not know whether I actually know the answer to that question. It has always been my assumption that the change provided something that is very clear cut. After all, if something at the national level is having a local impact, that probably represents unacceptable development. That is fairly clear cut.
On a practical note, I should say that we do get local advice—or advice at a local level—from NatureScot. Planners are quite good at pushing for advice on things that they do not understand, because we do not like to put our names to reports that contain incorrect information. It is not that the portcullis came down and there was no question of any interaction happening at a local level.
Sometimes, in order to understand a national impact, or whether there is a national impact, you need to understand quite a lot about the local impact, so that information is still there. Things are not quite as black and white as they might appear.
Great. That was very helpful. Ronan, I am not going to ask you—
I am sorry, but we have to move on. I am just very conscious of the time. We have about 30 minutes left and still have quite a number of questions to ask.
We move on to our third theme, which is siting near migratory routes, with a question from Emma Harper.
Good morning, and thanks for being here.
Picking up on what Rachel Shucksmith said about the precautionary principle, I note that one of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s recommendations was that the precautionary principle be applied in planning of the siting of fish farms. I assume that that was because there were reasonable grounds for concern about siting a farm where it might cause harm to migrating fish.
Rachel Shucksmith mentioned it, so I will come to her first. Is a precautionary principle approach being applied to planning decisions in relation to siting farms close to migratory routes? If so, how does that work in practice?
10:00
In Shetland, where I am based, we do not have large migratory rivers, so I am not the best person to answer that question. I will defer to my colleagues from the Highlands, where that is an issue.
I want to say something about the precautionary principle when it comes to aquaculture. It is important to put it in context. We need to remember that, at the national level, the precautionary principle that says that there will not be any aquaculture on the north and east coasts of Scotland, where the largest stocks of migratory fish exist, has been applied. That is sometimes forgotten. A precautionary principle approach is very much taken at the national level. There are not many presumptions against forms of development in particular locations in Scottish planning; that is one of a small number.
On specific application of the precautionary principle to particular farms and migratory fish, SEPA’s framework has moved that onwards a great deal. It has been able to make a modelled assessment of the likely outputs of sea lice from a fish farm and to match that against the knowledge that we have so far about migratory routes and sources. It is not just about migratory routes, however—there are also issues to do with fish associated with special areas of conservation, which might be a specific geographical identification. That has made a great difference.
A couple of applications are with me at the moment in which SEPA has been able to say that it does not expect there to be any significant impact on migratory fish. It is purely through geography that it has been able to make that assessment. That is something that we were not previously able to do and, in years gone by, SEPA or indeed NatureScot were not able to come back to us with answers with that degree of accuracy and such a scientific background. That is quite a big change that I would say is quite a precautionary approach. I am sure that the committee has spoken to SEPA; it will tell you how it goes about its work, but it works on the basis of taking a precautionary approach to risk.
We are certainly in a much better position than we were when I last spoke to the committee on the subject.
You mentioned special areas of conservation. I am thinking about enhancing and conserving biodiversity. What legal duties do local authorities and the Crown Estate have when making decisions about aquaculture consents? How are those embedded in decision making as we move forward for consenting?
Where we are dealing with a special area of conservation—they used to be termed the European sites—there is a legal obligation through habitats regulations. We have first to take advice about whether there might be a significant effect; that is a precautionary principle because the threshold is very low. If it is considered that there is likely to be a significant effect, we have to engage in an appropriate assessment, which is much more detailed and scientifically based.
We get a great deal of practical assistance from NatureScot in that area to assess whether there will be an adverse effect on site integrity—whether harm will be caused to the SAC. Most people would agree that that works effectively for the limited number of SACs, which could be salmon spawning rivers or rivers that contains freshwater pearl mussels and that sort of thing.
Again, from the perspective of Crown Estate Scotland, given that our role in the end-to-end consenting process is very much that of the landlord in providing an option then entering into a lease agreement, our obligations, which stem from the primary legislation, are to
“maintain and seek to enhance ... the value”
of the estate. That manifests in the form of an obligation to seek market value for commercial arrangements. As was mentioned earlier, our contribution and role mean that we seek, when it comes to siting and broader consenting considerations, to draw from and rely on expert advice from the likes of SEPA and the planning authorities, which draw on NatureScot.
However, we also have an obligation to seek to advance sustainable development. We do that and exercise it as best we can through our leasing provisions and covenants. That is reflected in the fact that, in recent years, we have sought to innovate and to bring forward sustainability reporting obligations for our tenants. We believe that that is a positive contribution.
Thanks.
The committee recently heard that there was evidence that sites are still being consented close to migratory routes, despite the policies in NPF4, and that district salmon fishery boards’ views are not given enough weight. Mark Harvey, given your experience, do you recognise those comments or concerns?
It is relatively early days with the threshold, but that is certainly not my personal experience. Having moved things on to a scientific footing, we have to be careful about applying just a distance or proximity parameter. That would oversimplify SEPA’s work, which is much more to do with the distribution of planktonic sea lice in an area. It is not inconceivable that a plume of sea lice that emanates from a farm might move in the opposite direction to the migratory fish, so that, despite the spatial distance being relatively small, the level of interaction might be low.
I do not have personal experience of having to deal with that. My most recent experience was simply a question in which there was a significant distance—to go back to distance—between particular farms and the route of the migratory fish, but account still needed to be taken of the direction that the sea lice would take in their movement through the water.
Thank you. We move to the next theme, which is enforcement.
I will pick up on a number of the recommendations that were made by the REC Committee. Recommendation 9 says:
“The Committee considers the current level of mortalities to be too high in general across the sector and it is very concerned to note the extremely high mortality rates at particular sites. It is of the view that no expansion should be permitted at sites which report high or significantly increased levels of mortalities, until these are addressed to the satisfaction of the appropriate regulatory bodies.”
Throughout these evidence sessions, we have heard about high mortality. One example is of a salmon farm in Loch Seaforth in the Western Isles, where more than a million fish died in a production cycle in 2023, and the level of suffering carried on for six months without any consequences. What do you think about that?
From our evidence sessions, it seems to be the case that already high levels of mortality are increasing—possibly due to climate change but maybe for other reasons—but nobody in the process seems to be responsible for the mortalities. We cannot quite get to the bottom of it. Do you have any thoughts on that and on what we can do about it?
That is quite a difficult area. We would not normally consider that to be a material consideration in planning—and there is a good reason for that. Obviously, we take the assumption that the operator, too, wishes such mortalities to be at a minimum—preferably zero—for its own economic and cost reasons.
Undoubtedly, environmental factors are emerging, or have emerged recently, in relation to gill disease on fish. In fact, that issue has probably overtaken by a long measure the health effects of sea lice. However, it would be difficult for planning to take that into account. We talked about spatial mapping, but a lot of science would need to be done—I do not know whether it is being done—to identify the areas of the coastline that are more prone to the environmental factors that lead to gill disease and where, I assume, one would therefore not put a farm. I have to say that that is the sort of work that, first and foremost, we would expect the operators to have done, and I think that they do it.
It is difficult to see how mortality can be factored in. I do not know enough about the on-going science to identify that. Climate change issues would be a concern, because those could, of course, affect a large part of the production area.
So, when you consent a farm, you do not have any data on mortality. You said that we might need to look at spatial mapping. At the moment, you do not have any data on the trends. I think that Rachel Shucksmith said that there is a fluid and changing picture when we are dealing with the marine space.
Yes. It would be very difficult to map it and take that into account—not least because the industry has developed techniques to overcome those problems and counter the issues to a degree. We would need to take that into account as well, as we have done with sea lice. The issue probably will not come into the planning remit. Your question was probably about which regulator the issue would fall to, and that is also a difficult question.
The REC Committee recommended that we need to do something about the issue, and it seems to me that we are not getting anywhere on recommendation 9.
Ronan O’Hara talked about Crown Estate Scotland having sustainability reporting obligations. What does CES think about the fact that it is a landlord—or a seabedlord—to companies that have a business that brings about a high level of mortality and suffering?
I believe that all participants in the industry and all actors in the system of central and local government are firmly of the view that mortality does not benefit anybody and that we all collectively wish to see it being reduced. To go back to a point that was made earlier, I must say that the data that I have seen suggests that mortality is kind of static or holding steady and is fluctuating rather than worsening, but I might be looking at different data sets.
The best way to drive change is to support change, and my inclination is that the industry is already incentivised economically to want to improve mortality rates. The question is how that can be supported or aided. That will ultimately be through innovation and the application of progressive research, because it is a dynamic situation in a dynamic environment.
Therefore, I suggest that we need greater investment and collaboration across all participants, because driving down mortality is a win-win-win. Regrettably, it is a feature of all forms of farming. Obviously, it is not appropriate to draw comparisons between terrestrial farming and marine farming, or indeed across species, but the problem is common to all forms of farming.
On how Crown Estate Scotland views the issue—
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I want to pick up on that point, because if a million animals that live on land were to die—chickens or pigs—there would be an outcry.
I agree. That is why I said that the comparison between different sectors is not necessarily logical. However, Crown Estate Scotland would like to work with others on addressing and improving that. We have provisions to evolve our sustainability reporting over time, and doing so would provide us with an opportunity. However, ultimately, I believe that the way forward is investment in collaborative research.
My sense is that the industry sees a high rate of mortality as the price of doing business; that is what we have heard throughout our evidence sessions. Rachel Shucksmith, do you have any thoughts about what we could do to address the mortality issue, or on how we could support the industry to improve in that area?
On your original point about whether there should be a standard threshold, we advise a level of caution because some mass mortality events—say, those that are driven by algae or by a jellyfish bloom—might occur at a locality then not occur again for 20 years. In Shetland, I observed that a particular species of jellyfish bloomed and caused mass mortality, but that species has never been seen to bloom again, and so it has never impacted on that locality again. Although a one-off mortality rate was very high there, preventing aquaculture at that site in future years would not have been necessary.
It might present a challenge if a relatively arbitrary trigger were to prevent restocking. Some of the challenges—such as those that are posed by hydromedusa, which is a type of jellyfish—can cause ongoing mortality for months beyond the initial bloom. I cannot comment on the example that you gave, but it can be a continuing problem for one cycle of fish.
My understanding is that the aquaculture industry has already invested heavily in the area. I have trained staff to monitor water quality and I am sure that—as has been highlighted by Crown Estate Scotland—continued scientific support would be welcomed. However, as has already suggested, the industry is very motivated to minimise mortality where possible and is investing in doing so where it can.
I will ask a question or two about environmental management plans. At the meeting of this committee on 26 June 2024, Fisheries Management Scotland raised concerns about the lack of enforcement of EMPs and the planning conditions that are designed to limit escapes. I will start by asking you, Rachel Shucksmith, to what extent are environmental management plans standard practice. What impact are they having?
That is not in my arena as a strategic marine planner; the question would be a better directed to Mark Harvey.
You are right that environmental management plans tend to be in two parts. They tend to deal with the monitoring of the impact of sea lice, and they also include an element about escape plans.
The introduction of the framework from SEPA has meant that environmental management plans in their current form are no longer required. Attempting to control the impacts of sea lice only by monitoring wild fish is not something that planning authorities are likely to pursue any longer. It might well be that the wild fish monitoring that SEPA has initiated to support the framework will continue, and we are still discussing how the two might cross over but, generally, you will find that environmental management plans are less likely to be used for the control of sea lice.
Escapes have always been a difficult issue. Operators are legally required to report escapes to the marine directorate. Planners incorporated that aspect into environmental management plans, largely to ensure that a proper planning approach was taken. The measures that operators were taking to ensure that their escapes were kept to a minimum was therefore in the public domain. In my experience, they did not include a great deal of information about what to do if there was an escape. Again, that was left very much to the marine directorate to deal with.
I would probably say that environmental management plans—in the form of their being attached to planning applications—are on their way out. They might be incorporated within SEPA’s CAR licensing procedures.
Highland Council does not enforce any aspect of environmental management plans at this time. Is that correct?
There are two aspects to that. One aspect is to ensure that the monitoring element of the environmental management plan is carried out. We have been active in ensuring that monitoring is carried out in an appropriate manner. We have, on several occasions, taken advice on the best techniques for monitoring wild fish, the best locations for doing so, and so forth.
On monitoring outcomes, I do not think that we have had a situation in which there was enough evidence to identify that a fish farm was having an unacceptable, harmful impact on local wild fish through sea lice emissions. We never got to that point, and I have to say that that is probably the weakness of the environmental management plan. I suspect that it would be very difficult to identify enough evidence to take the matter to the enforcement stage. That is one reason why there was a crying need for SEPA’s framework and a scientifically evidenced approach.
I want to check that I understand this fully. Environmental management plans still exist, but they are gradually falling into disuse.
They might not. To the extent that they are a mechanism by which wild fish are monitored for sea lice impacts and general health, they might still have a swan song, as it were, in supporting the evidence that SEPA gathers through the framework.
The framework has initially come in as a modelled approach to risk relating to sea lice and wild fish interactions, but in the background there is always a need to empirically test a modelling approach. The work that has been initiated by the EMPs might well provide that input and the empirical assessment of the health of local wild fish.
To be honest, to the layman, that sounds a bit woolly. It sounds as if there is probably something coming down the line that will, in effect, replace the environmental management plans. That has not arrived yet and you do not know the full form that it will take, but, gradually, the environmental management plans will not be used anymore.
A great deal of weight can be placed on the framework as it exists. The science behind the modelling that SEPA is using to identify where there might or might not be interactions between a fish farm and wild fish in a way that would be harmful to populations of wild fish is pretty robust. It has progressed things a good deal further than local authorities were able to through the information that came from the EMPs.
I would say that EMPs have been successful in stimulating a level of work, co-ordination and co-operation among operators, local fisheries boards, river trusts and so forth, on how best to monitor wild fish and the impact of sea lice on their health. There have therefore been some positives. However, the enforcement of the EMPs was always going to be difficult. It would be rare to come across information from an assessment in the field that was a smoking gun, indicating that a fish farm was having an unacceptable impact on wild fish. I do not think that anyone has ever delivered data of that nature.
Ronan O’Hara, do you have any input?
To be honest, I am not sure that I could add meaningfully to what Mark Harvey has already relayed.
I am conscious of time. I have a brief question, and I am hoping that we will get a brief response. Are the lines of responsibility clear for planning enforcement and ensuring that the conditions are met? If there is no information sharing, is there any possibility that issues could fall between the slats?
If the condition is worded well, it is clear what parameters are needed and we can draw on other bodies in order to work them out. Ultimately, although we can serve stop notices and so forth, we would be wary of doing that unless we had very good evidence, because there are issues of compensation with commercial operations. The alternative is to go to the local courts, which are busy and tend to be less interested in the sort of actions that local authorities lodge. There is an issue there.
To sum up, it appears that there is a lack of capacity and ability to enforce planning conditions effectively and sufficiently.
Not generally, but it is the case for environmental issues. One of SEPA’s advantages is that it moved to licensing arrangements. Planning permission is granted permanently, but licences need to be renewed. That gives SEPA a strong handle on enforcement.
We will move on to our final theme—community engagement.
Does the new pilot process reduce opportunities for local and community engagement by streamlining or reducing the timeframes for consenting? I will go to Mark Harvey first.
Theoretically, this is one of the attractive things for us about the pre-app process. Although there are various points at which public consultation is required before an application is made—obviously, consultation is a requirement once an application has been made—we were aware that SEPA often engages in a public consultation early in its own pre-app process. Through the pilot, we were keen as local authorities to co-ordinate the work, in order to obtain earlier input from communities.
So far, there has been a mixed picture from the examples that we have had. We have had one application that fell within the major application scale, so the operator was required to carry out a public consultation as part of the proposal of application notice—PAN—requirements. In the other cases, there was less of a community to engage directly. We are still looking in the pilot for a suitable application—for a new farm that sits close to a community, for example. That would provide an opportunity, through the pilot or the pre-app process, to co-ordinate the work of SEPA and planners. Arguably, that would improve the public consultation process.
10:30
Dr Shucksmith, are there ways that local engagement could be improved, during consenting and throughout the lifetime of the development, to deliver the social contract that is envisioned by the Griggs review?
There are a number of things to consider on community and public engagement. For example, including people in the process makes them feel listened to and valued, and research suggests that that makes people much happier with any outcome from the process. The pre-application consultation, which occurs early in the process, is often key to ensuring that communities and people feel heard and valued.
There are a number of challenges in developing a formal social contract in terms of assuming the level of engagement the public might want. Engagement is more likely to occur where a development is controversial. The effectiveness of any social contract could be more complicated depending on the particular locality and the information detail that might be wanted. For future developments, you would hope that many of the concerns that were raised at the pre-application stage would be addressed during the consenting process so that the on-going issues would be minimal.
Ronan, regarding the Crown Estate’s leasing role, are there any community engagement or community benefit mechanisms associated with those decisions, and are there calls for a community benefit mechanism?
It is a good question. The first thing is that there are already arrangements in place whereby money flows back to the communities, but I am not sure that we take full advantage of making that transparent and communicating that effectively so that those communities can see clearly the impact of the commercial arrangements in their locality.
Crown Estate Scotland staff—my colleagues and I—very much view ourselves as serving and supporting the communities where there are assets under management, and we view those as a long, on-going and important relationships. We channel small amounts of money into initiatives such as our sustainable communities fund, which supports initiatives on the ground to enhance community opportunities. If I were to say what opportunities exist for the future, I would suggest, although it is at the discretion of others, that if more money was retained by Crown Estate Scotland for reinvestment at a localised level, we could make that impact more meaningful, more immediate and more visible.
I will concentrate on two recommendations in the report that the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee produced in 2018. Recommendation 51—which I am sure you will know off the top of your head, Mark, but just to remind you if you do not—was that the Scottish Government should undertake a strategic spatial planning exercise, taking into account all the affected areas. That recommendation should have been carried out. Has it been carried out? Do you use that in making your planning decisions?
That probably refers back to earlier discussion about whether we apply the same level of spatial planning.
I am asking whether there has been a map-based spatial planning exercise, carried out by the Scottish Government and produced in conjunction with SEPA, that says where fish farms should be allowed and where they should not be allowed. Do you have such a map, and are you using it?
No—no such map has been produced.
So recommendation 51 has been ignored, then, by definition.
I take you to recommendation 53, on the relocation of fish farms where it is clear that they are a problem. How many planning applications has Highland Council received, considered and actioned for the relocation of fish farms because they are a problem at their existing site?
I do not think that we have reached the first stage yet, because we have not identified where there are problematic fish farms. That is another aspect of the framework that might be particularly useful, because SEPA might well be able to identify such farms, in which case we would certainly take a view on relocation.
How different an application for relocation is from an application for a new fish farm is another matter. We do not control whether a company wants to close down an existing fish farm, although that might be what SEPA requires. We would obviously look at a fresh fish farm application in much the same way as we would any other application.
Do you know how depressing that is for me? I sat on the predecessor committee in 2018 when it recommended that poorly sited fish farms should be relocated to take away the threat in relation to their production from high mortality levels and their effect on wild fish where the farms are sited on existing migratory routes, and now you are telling me that, six years later, that has not been implemented. Would you be depressed?
Well, not so much, because relocation is not the only issue. Since I appeared before that committee, I have seen the industry become very much focused on reworking its existing units. Certainly in Highland Council, we have dealt with a surprisingly low number of applications for new fish farm sites, but a very large number of applications for reworking farm sites. Most of that is to do with making them more productive, as you say, and more environmentally sustainable.
Relocation is not the only issue—
It is certainly not the only issue, but the predecessor committee’s report focused heavily on it, and the salmon farmers in Scotland said that they would consider it and put it high up on their list of priorities. I remember them saying that, and now they are saying, “We have nothing.”
I will leave it there, convener, because I may get more depressed as my questioning continues.
That concludes our witness session. I thank you all for coming along today; the session has been most helpful.
Our next item is consideration of the Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill. I propose that we take a 15-minute break first.
10:37 Meeting suspended.
10:51 On resuming—