Tories are to blame over water

Aug 22 2008

HOW disappointing that Prestwick, and Ayr south beaches failed to meet the legal minimum EU water quality standard, and have been downgraded.

Of course whilst the Tories are quick to boast about their civic pride in the beaches, their hopes for the blue flag awards, the extra beach cleaning etc, who seriously wants to be visiting a beach where a nearby sewer outfall is regularly disgorging its contents of foul sewage into the bathing waters.

This sewage has had only primary treatment which means it has been passed through a sieve like screen, but has had no disinfectant.

It didn't have to be like this. South Ayrshire had the opportunity to have a sewage treatment works at Greenan, but the Tories in their wisdom decided to go against their own planning officers recommendations , opting instead to have the sewage pumped all the way to Irvine's Meadowhead (via a few pumping stations along the way).

When I obtained the figures for the first years operation at Newton pumping station, I was horrified to discover that it had discharged around 650 times, and whilst people from Newton, Prestwick and Monkton are complaining of sewage coming up in their factories, their gardens and streets, all the council spokesperson Councillor Peter Convery can say is that there are signs up warning people of poor water quality at Ayr south beach

Scottish Water are investing £2.4 billion up to 2010, and the council should be busy working for a share of the money for South Ayrshire, not encouraging folk to use beaches where the water is so polluted it can't even pass the minimum standards.

Worse still, if we don't get the much needed investment, parts of Ayrshire potentially could end up with a moratorium on development, which has been defined as one of the main economic drivers for South Ayrshire.

As the Tories flagship policies start to take on water it seems to me that it's time to replace the blue flags in south Ayrshire with a few more red ones

Councillor Helen Moonie.