Scottish government told to take sewage 'crisis' seriously after record 100,000 spills

The Scottish government has been told to bring its sewage "crisis" under control after a record 100,000 spills were recorded in a single year.

Scottish Water recorded 100,041 wastewater overflows last year, which the Scottish Liberal Democrats claim is four times higher than the previous year.

It coincides with the installation of more than 1,000 new sewage overflow monitors.

Scottish Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Sanne Dijkstra-Downie has written to Climate Action and Rural Affairs Secretary Gillian Martin, urging her to take action.

She said the government must "treat this crisis with the seriousness it deserves" and called on the minister to outline a plan to "bring sewage discharges under control".

The letter reads: "Sewage is being dumped into our rivers, lochs and beaches more than 100,000 times in 2025.

"The Scottish government needs to start listening and taking this crisis seriously. Scottish Liberal Democrats have a plan to get to the bottom of this filthy practice.

"That means a clean water act to take the sewage scandal seriously, track down and report every sewage dump, and replace outdated standards with modern enforceable regulation."

Scottish Water says 99% of the wastewater discharged from sewer overflows in periods of heavy rain is rainwater and "grey" water from households and appliances - not sewage.

A spokesperson denied that wastewater was being "dumped" in waters and said that "flows are heavily diluted" in these kinds of conditions.

They went on: "Because the dataset we have published this week is now much larger, the number of recorded events is higher.

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"This should not be interpreted as a like-for-like increase in overflow activity; it primarily reflects the fact that more locations are being monitored and more information is being published."

Climate Action and Rural Affairs Secretary Gillian Martin responded: "These assertions are incorrect. Scottish Water has published a larger dataset - this means information is being made available from more locations, not that overflows are operating more often.

"Scottish Water currently has over 2,000 overflow monitors in place (50% of overflows). The Scottish government has consulted on objectives for Scottish Water for the next regulatory period, 2027-33, that would require it to provide public-facing access to data on overflows from all intermittent discharges in its network."

(c) Sky News 2026: Scottish government told to take sewage 'crisis' seriously after record 100,000 spills