Aberdeenshire Council will pilot a scheme to deal with potential drought this summer.
The £20million project will involve the local authority, Scottish Water and Consumer Scotland, and will assess whether public water networks can be increased to also contain households currently on private supplies.
Aberdeenshire has been selected for the pilot as it has a third of all Scotland’s private water supplies, making it more vulnerable to water shortages.
The Centre of Expertise for Waters says that there are currently 22,000 private water supplies in Scotland serving nearly 4% of the population. These are mostly in rural locations beyond the boundaries of public water mains.
How much of a threat is drought to people in the north-east?
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which monitors the quality of Scotland’s water, have announced there continues to be an east-west split in the risk of water scarcity across Scotland.
Last year, the agency announced that 2021 was the second driest summer for 160 years.
Environment Minister Mairi McAllan said: “It is clear that climate change is affecting Scotland and the availability of water. In recent times, prolonged dry weather has resulted in many private supplies running dry much earlier in the year.
“We have asked Scottish Water to examine the prospect of connecting up communities that are in close proximity of existing water mains and that have experienced loss of water due to water scarcity, and that work is under way to determine which households might benefit.”
The pilot will be led by the Scottish Government and rolled out in Aberdeenshire first, with a view to expanding it across Scotland.
What will the pilot mean for people in Aberdeenshire?
A lot of information regarding the scheme is still a mystery.
Scottish Water, Consumer Scotland, Aberdeenshire Council, and the Scottish Government have all remained tight-lipped about what is going on.
It is currently not known when the scheme is going to start, what is involved, or what residents can expect.
An Aberdeenshire Council spokesman said: “The Scottish Government has committed to allocating capital funds to invest in the network and increase the number of properties which are connected to the mains.
“We are currently in early discussions with the Scottish Government and Scottish Water on how best to spend the current funding that has been committed.”
The Scottish Government has promised an update on the pilot later in the year.
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