The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) has only received 20% of the expected data returns for water abstraction licences before the 31 December deadline.

Farmers who hold a water abstraction licence should be in the process of collating and sending their data returns to the SEPA by the end of the year.

Data returns are a mandatory requirement for licence holders, to ensure abstraction of water doesn’t affect the ecology of Scotland’s rivers and reservoirs.

The data is also a key indicator of compliance and forms an important component of SEPA’s annual Compliance Assessment Scheme.

To date, only 20% of the expected data returns have been received.

At this point last year, more than 50 percent of returns were in.

Written reminder

NFU Scotland has pointed out that this is the first year when abstraction licence holders haven’t received a written reminder from SEPA. The union is encouraging farmers to make an effort to get the paper work in by 31 December.