Professor John Robertson OBA
The Ferret factchecker today has:
Revealed: The mega farms polluting the environment with excrement – Mega farms in Scotland, including some with more than a million animals, have repeatedly leaked excrement and failed to monitor contamination, putting humans, wildlife and the environment at risk, The Ferret can reveal.
By failing to responsibly contain or dispose of slurry, wastewater and harmful air particles these industrial-sized farms were responsible for 126 breaches of green regulations between May 2022 and November 2024.
The rule breaking is revealed in inspection reports compiled by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which The Ferret obtained under freedom of information law.
https://theferret.scot/mega-farms-polluting-the-environment-excrement/
In the Ferret report, I couldn’t help but notice that of the 5 main offenders, the worst two were based in England, Hook2Sisters and Warrendale Eggs Ltd, and one, Annyalla Chicks, in Wales.
From the Ferret report:
The worst offending mega farm company was Hook2Sisters (H2S). The Oxfordshire-based firm, which is permitted to keep nearly 7.5 million birds at its 19 Scottish sites, was responsible for more than a quarter of all intensive farm environmental breaches.
In 2024, Sepa found that York-based Warrendale Eggs Ltd was releasing dust and particulate matter – air pollution which is harmful to humans – via exhaust fans from its chicken sheds at Swinton Poultry Farm near Greenriggs, Duns.
The Welsh business seems less of an offender:
In 2022, Sepa found that Welsh poultry firm, Annyalla Chicks, allowed dirty wastewater to flow onto land neighbouring its Addinstone complex, near Earlston.
The other two businesses, on further investigation, also all lesser offenders than the two huge Oxfordshire and Yorkshire-based concerns are PD Hook – Oxfordshire and DW Argo (only pigs) – Aberdeenshire. These two, single site concerns had only one reported offence in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and neither were linked to risks to humans.
The Ferret report is keen to lay the blame for this situation at the feet of the Scottish environmental protection agency, Sepa, and by implication the Scottish Government.
Not mentioned in the Ferret report is a fundamental weakness in the devolved environmental legislation, not suffered by the Environment Agency in England.
In England:
The Environment Agency can bring its own prosecutions and claim legal expenses in successful cases, whereas SEPA must submit cases through the Procurator Fiscal and cannot claim expenses
https://beta.sepa.scot/about-sepa/who-we-are/frequently-asked-questions/
Readers will know from many media-reported cases, that the Procurator Fiscal is strongly predisposed to only approve cases likely to succeed in the courts. This delays, adds excessive costs and, with the inability to claim expenses, serious inhibits Sepa actions. These mostly English companies will be well aware of this and, as we see with the creepily-named Hook2Sister, exploit it serially.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
When you say ” Readers will know from many media-reported cases, that the Procurator Fiscal is strongly predisposed to only approve cases likely to succeed in the courts. This delays, adds excessive costs and, with the inability to claim expenses, serious inhibits Sepa actions ” do you mean COPFS or the subordinates under their control ? – Only asking in light of the Salmond, Sturgeon, Beattie and dozens of other farces with enormous bills arising…
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I didn’t know this, so English based companies operating in Scotland can basically wreck Scotland’s environment and there is nothing that SEPA or the ScotGov(?) can do about it.
Grrr.
What’s COPFS? Also, enormous bills? Can you expand on that please? THx
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The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) is Scotland’s public prosecution service – https://www.copfs.gov.uk/
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Thanks, good to know. 🙂
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I suppose, I’m thinking of the system as a whole including the politically directed milking of those you correctly identify.
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Friends of mine in NE England recently said they were hoping to go have a holiday abroad so they can swim in clean water (OK right) ‘not like the British water full of sh*t’. I did point out that if any seas in Scotland are full of sh*t we can’t control the tides so who knows where it’s coming from ;- 0.
Why do people in England always have to include Scotland into their narrative about how sh*t England is, sigh.
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Well if my memory serves me well your friends will indeed be fortunate to swim in clean water courses in Europe especially the Med as it used to be one of the most polluted on the planet.
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Indeed: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/israels-mediterranean-a-septic-tank-idUSNOA731214/
and https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-clean-is-the-mediterranean
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