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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S3W-09134

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to update planning guidance on waste in order to reflect the new waste targets and, if so, when.

Question reference: S3W-09128

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether, in respect of its new targets on waste, it will pay the fines of local authorities that have submitted plans to it which the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment has not approved.

Question reference: S3W-09136

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Environment Protection Agency will be expected to give local authorities specific advice in achieving the proximity principle, whereby there is a presumption that all schemes will be located close to the source of the waste and will be of an appropriate scale.

Question reference: S3W-09125

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive why, following the recommendations of the Sustainable Development Commission, it has not extended its waste strategy to include commercial waste.

The Parliamentary Statement on waste policy on 24 January announced the government''s intention to review the National Waste Plan. The review will consider commercial and industrial waste and, as indicated in the statement, the government will consult on new targets to reduce the amount of commercial waste that goes to landfill.

Landfill Tax, a key policy lever in relation to commercial and industrial waste, is a reserved matter. However, the Scottish Government is carrying out or supporting a wide range of work on commercial waste including producer responsibility, the report by the Wood Fuel Task Force and Envirowise, which provides advice to business on waste prevention:

http://www.usewoodfuel.co.uk/Docs/WFTF%20final%20report%20for%20web.pdf, http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/scotland.

Question reference: S3W-09133

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the proximity principle will be a material issue for determining planning applications for new waste facilities.

Question reference: S3W-09281

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made on the Scottish Sustainable Procurement Action Plan, as referred to in paragraph 7.25 of Energy Efficiency and Microgeneration: Achieving a Low Carbon Future: A Strategy for Scotland - draft for consultation, March 2007.

Question reference: S3W-07895

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 24 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been budgeted for the next three years for new woodland planting to benefit wildlife through the Scottish Rural Development Plan.

The 2007-13 Scotland Rural DevelopmentProgramme includes an allocation of £170 million for woodland creation. This equatesto an annual allocation for woodland creation in the region of £24 million. Allof this funding will be delivered through measures under Axis 2 of theprogramme. These are focussed on environmental enhancements which, across a widerange of situations, will deliver direct benefits for Scotland’s wildlife and naturalhabitats.

Question reference: S3W-07606

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 24 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what residential properties and commercial premises are at risk of (a) river and (b) coastal flooding, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested isset out in the following tables.

Table1, Properties Inside 1/200 Fluvial Flood Zone, by Local Authority

				Fluvial Flooding (Properties Affected)
Local Authority	Area (KM2)	Properties	Prop/Area	Commercial	Dwelling	Properties	Properties (%)
Aberdeen City	186	114,265	615	176	865	1,041	0.9
Aberdeenshire	6,318	108,927	17	135	1,982	2,117	1.9
Angus	2,185	54,807	25	86	935	1,021	1.9
Argyll and Bute	7,008	48,754	7	49	553	602	1.2
Clackmannanshire	159	23,315	147	46	1,082	1,128	4.8
Dumfries and Galloway	6,437	73,683	11	119	1,522	1,641	2.2
Dundee City	60	75,528	1,264	24	290	314	0.4
East Ayrshire	1,270	56,373	44	310	3,107	3,417	6.1
East Dunbartonshire	175	45,343	260	271	1,608	1,879	4.1
East Lothian	679	43,806	64	120	767	887	2.0
East Renfrewshire	174	37,852	218	44	807	851	2.2
Edinburgh City	263	240,849	915	386	6,278	6,664	2.8
Eilean Siar	3,098	14,134	5	2	72	74	0.5
Falkirk	297	71,255	240	108	4,181	4,289	6.0
Fife	1,325	172,183	130	142	2,250	2,392	1.4
Glasgow City	175	309,626	1,773	241	11,508	11,749	3.8
Highland	26,162	112,167	4	255	2,021	2,276	2.0
Inverclyde	162	40,985	253	68	552	620	1.5
Midlothian	355	35,669	100	19	332	351	1.0
Moray	2,238	43,036	19	268	3,239	3,507	8.1
North Ayrshire	885	67,320	76	267	3,264	3,531	5.2
North Lanarkshire	472	149,424	316	38	1,152	1,190	0.8
Orkney Islands	1,012	10,339	10	2	14	16	0.2
Perth and Kinross	5,384	69,917	13	321	3,671	3,992	5.7
Renfrewshire	262	85,344	326	313	4,680	4,993	5.9
Scottish Borders	4,739	57,003	12	577	4,128	4,705	8.3
Shetland Islands	1,467	10,674	7	8	7	15	0.1
South Ayrshire	1,224	55,497	45	40	764	804	1.4
South Lanarkshire	1,774	143,923	81	68	1,085	1,153	0.8
Stirling	2,253	40,623	18	87	2,909	2,996	7.4
West Dunbartonshire	177	45,541	257	216	2,110	2,326	5.1
West Lothian	429	74,906	175	15	757	772	1.0
Scotland	78,805	2,533,068	32	4,821	68,492	73,313	2.9

Table 2, Properties Inside 1/200Coastal Flood Zone, by Local Authority

				Fluvial Flooding (Properties Affected)
Local Authority	Area (KM2)	Properties	Prop/Area	Commercial	Dwelling	Properties	Properties (%)
Aberdeen City	186	114,265	615	30	44	74	0.1
Aberdeenshire	6,318	108,927	17	67	379	446	0.4
Angus	2,185	54,807	25	51	857	908	1.7
Argyll and Bute	7,008	48,754	7	241	1202	1,443	3.0
Clackmannanshire	159	23,315	147	2	19	21	0.1
Dumfries and Galloway	6,437	73,683	11	36	362	398	0.5
Dundee City	60	75,528	1,264	134	1013	1,147	1.5
East Ayrshire	1,270	56,373	44	0	0	0	0.0
East Dunbartonshire	175	45,343	260	0	0	0	0.0
East Lothian	679	43,806	64	78	2360	2,438	5.6
East Renfrewshire	174	37,852	218	0	0	0	0.0
Edinburgh City	263	240,849	915	190	1681	1,871	0.8
Eilean Siar	3,098	14,134	5	53	389	442	3.1
Falkirk	297	71,255	240	169	6046	6,215	8.7
Fife	1,325	172,183	130	123	1408	1,531	0.9
Glasgow City	175	309,626	1,773	18	1434	1,452	0.5
Highland	26,162	112,167	4	276	1024	1,300	1.2
Inverclyde	162	40,985	253	52	488	540	1.3
Midlothian	355	35,669	100	0	0	0	0.0
Moray	2,238	43,036	19	9	108	117	0.3
North Ayrshire	885	67,320	76	49	683	732	1.1
North Lanarkshire	472	149,424	316	3	2	5	0.0
Orkney Islands	1,012	10,339	10	52	274	326	3.2
Perth and Kinross	5,384	69,917	13	3	69	72	0.1
Renfrewshire	262	85,344	326	104	1276	1,380	1.6
Scottish Borders	4,739	57,003	12	23	47	70	0.1
Shetland Islands	1,467	10,674	7	60	66	126	1.2
South Ayrshire	1,224	55,497	45	204	1275	1,479	2.7
South Lanarkshire	1,774	143,923	81	20	77	97	0.1
Stirling	2,253	40,623	18	3	248	251	0.6
West Dunbartonshire	177	45,541	257	179	1121	1,300	2.9
West Lothian	429	74,906	175	0	0	0	0.0
Scotland	78,805	2,533,068	32	2,229	23,952	26,181	1.0

Despite the accuracy of the figuresin this report, they should be used as indicative, and not definitive, as they arebased on an Indicative Flood Map. The limitations of this map are:

Discontinuityof the fluvial outline, due to tributaries not joining up;

Misalignmentbetween datasets, due to projection errors;

DTMerrors, due to complex automated land cover removal, and

Methodologylimitation.

The number of potentially affectedproperties is based on the estimated number of postal entries at the time of releaseof the OS Address Layer 2 dataset (April 2006) and is likely to have a high degreeof variability.

The coastline of Scotland usedin this analysis is the Ordnance Survey Boundary Line 2005 high-water mark coastline.Although it is unlikely that there are any properties located outside this coastline,the land surface between the low-water mark and the high-water mark can be considerablein places. The coastal flood zone produced by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency does include this lands surface as well as some sea area.In the calculations, these areas were not included as coastal flood zone, or asland surface.

Other points of concern are:

Exclusionof non-postal entries in the OS Address Layer 2 dataset.

Indicativemap at scale 1/50k, not suitable to use for individual properties.

Interaction between fluvial andcoastal is not included.

Question reference: S3W-08007

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 18 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made since May 2007 in dealing with the sewerage odour nuisance from the Seafield sewage works in Edinburgh.

Good progress has been made.Scottish Water and Stirling Water (the PFI company responsible for theoperations at Seafield Waste Water Treatment Works) are complying with theStatutory Code of Practice, as determined by the regulators, the City of Edinburgh Council.

The prerequisite odour managementplan is in place. An odour improvement plan was submitted at the end of March2007 and is in the final stages of review by the City of Edinburgh Council. The outcome of this review will determine the capital work programmefor odour minimisation to ensure future compliance with the Statutory Code ofPractice.

Question reference: S3W-07896

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 December 2007
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 11 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what criteria have been established for the forestry sales proposed in the budget which are intended to raise £15 million for reinvestment in woodlands.

The national forest estatehas been subject to a portfolio analysis, objectively assessing each part of the estate against delivery of economic, social and environmental benefits.This analysis will be used to determine priorities for sale of national forestland which contributes little to the delivery of Forestry Commission Scotland’sobjectives. Details of the process will be published in the new year as part ofa consultation on the framework strategic plan for the national forest estate.