A scheme offering financial assistance to land managers, owners and tenants, worth up to £10,000 a year, has been launched to improve drinking water for around 330,000 people in Scotland by reducing diffuse pollution.
Scottish Water's Best Practice Incentive Scheme is designed to improve and protect six of Scotland's key water supply catchments – the River Ugie and River Deveron in Aberdeenshire, the Loch of Lintrathen in Angus, Craigendunton Reservoir in Ayrshire, the Dumfries Aquifer and Loch Ascog in Argyll and Bute.
As well as affecting water quality, diffuse pollution can affect the profitability of farms through the loss of valuable nutrients, top soil and pesticides.
The new scheme offers grants for a range of measures such as establishing concrete areas for filling field sprayers with a grant worth up to £1250.
Other measures include placing new water troughs away from rivers and laying the necessary water pipes which attract payments of up to £195 per trough and £3 per metre of pipe, while fencing to keep livestock back from river banks will be grant aided at the rate of £4 per metre.
There will also be financial help for sprayer testing, soil analysis, training in diffuse pollution and for substituting more expensive but safer pesticides.
Peter Brown, Scottish Water's water quality regulation manager said: "By working together with land managers, owners and tenants in the catchments of drinking water sources, we can enhance drinking water standards, protect public health and promote more sustainable solutions than traditional treatment processes."
Further details of the scheme, specific issues in each catchments area, and the range of financial assistance available can be found at: www.scottishwater.co.uk/protectdwsources
United Auctions sold 3708 prime hoggs at Stirling on Thursday to a top of £107 per head and 235p per kg to average 180.4p (-8p on the week), while 27 prime lambs peaked at £118 and 245p to level at 225.1p. There were also 587 cast ewes that sold to £139.50 for Texels and £77.50 for Cheviots.
The Cumberland & Dumfriesshire Farmers' Mart sold 5073 prime hoggs in Longtown on Thursday to a top of £109.50 per head and 241p per kg to average 183p.
The firm also had 4851 cast sheep forward that included many plainer and hill-type ewes. Heavy ewes sold to £136.50 for Texels and averaged £93.33, while light ewes peaked at £90.50 for Beulahs and levelled at £60.62. Cast rams sold to £148.50 for Texels and averaged £88.17.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article