Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Aberdeenshire Council to run pilot scheme to deal with water shortages

Drought at North Gairn on the Invercauld Estate in the Cairngorms National Park.  Photo from Lorne Gill/SNH.
Drought at North Gairn on the Invercauld Estate in the Cairngorms National Park. Photo from Lorne Gill/SNH.

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.

SEPA water scarcity map shows the north-east regularly lacks water. Supplied by SEPA.

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.

Conversation