Seafield upgrade offers stench victims powerful whiff of hope

NINE out of ten homes affected by the infamous "Seafield stench" would be rid of the smell under new improvements backed by council officials.

Plans put forward by Scottish Water, which owns Seafield Sewage Works, would see most of the odour problem removed in a series of upgrades worth around £20 million. However, the measures do not include covering the sewage tanks, which is something that long-suffering local residents have campaigned for.

Local MSP and Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill is also likely to be disappointed, after last year saying that covering the tanks "appears to be the only real solution to the odour problem".

Among the proposed measures is for an "odour abatement plant" to be fitted above the sewage tanks to filter out the noxious smells.

New screening and treatment equipment will be fitted at the sewer entrance to the plant, and all of the open channels between the different areas will be covered.

Covering the tanks is the most expensive option, thought to cost around £40m, although it has not been ruled out if the other measures do not work. City officials, who sent Scottish Water back to the drawing board with their last odour plan, today said they were confident the measures would solve the decades-old problem.

If it is agreed by councillors next week, and wins all of its planning permissions, then the council would drop its court action against Scottish Water and plant operator Stirling Water, requiring them to tackle the odour nuisance.

Gordon Greenhill, head of community safety, said the package would mean 94 per cent of affected homes would no longer have an odour problem. He said: "These measures will make such huge inroads into the problem that I would be very surprised to see any future nuisance problems from the plant.

"There will always be smells on occasions, during periods of agreed maintenance or upgrades for example, but there is no solution that will get rid of the problem completely. If, at the end of a year of monitoring these improvements, there are still problems, then we look again at other ways to improve the situation."

Scottish Water submitted its last odour plan to the council in April last year, just two weeks before a major breakdown saw 100 million litres of sewage released into the Forth.

This spill triggered an independent review of the plant by the Water Research Council, the results of which Scottish Water has so far refused to release.

The new measures are separate from the enforcement notice served by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency on Thursday, which relates to short-term mechanical failings.

Councillor Robert Aldridge, the city's environment leader, said: "We have received a revised odour abatement plan from Scottish Water. We will take the plan into serious consideration and discuss it at the committee so as to reach the best solution to this problem."

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