Lower Largo
Project Overview
Scottish Water is committed to continuing to support the protection and improvement of Scotland’s rivers, coastal waters and beaches.
2024 is the third year that Lower Largo bay has been an official designated bathing water and Scottish Water continues to liaise with SEPA and others with regards to understanding the improvements needed to the waste water network and assets to meet Sufficient status as a minimum.
We have an on-going programme of work in Lower Largo, to understand any impact our waste water system has on the water quality and we are committed to working with SEPA and others to deliver any improvements identified as needed.
At A Glance
- We are supporting the protection and improvement of Scotland’s rivers, coastal waters and beaches
- We are working to understand impact of the local drainage network on the water environment in Lundin Links and Lower Largo, to help bathing water quality.
- We are looking for all interventions possible to help improve bathing water quality now and in the future
Lower Largo
Designated bathing water
Lower Largo - Bathing Water Study
We initiated the bathing water study in Autumn 2021, and although this is the most complex type of study that Scottish Water undertakes and usually requires 4 years worth of data for accurate modelling and analysis. We have attempted to accelerate the study for the community and try to calibrate the model on one year's worth of data.
We have concluded our modelling exercise, which was undertaken to inform us of the potential impact of Scottish Water’s assets (Waste Water Treatment Works & Combined Sewer Overflows) near to the designated bathing water at Lower Largo.
The modelling shows that the Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) final effluent is the biggest contributor to bathing water.
We have met with SEPA and shared the outputs of the modelling assessment and we will continued to liaise with them on the development of improvement options.
Short/ medium term improvements:
We are recognising that, because of access, planning and licencing requirements, a permanent solution will take a number of years to implement and temporary improvement will be required until this can be put in place.
Our team is exploring what temporary solutions we could implement at Lower Largo. To allow us enough time to appropriately investigate and plan for installation, we are unable to have a temporary solution in place before the upcoming bathing season in 2024. However, we are committed to have a solution in place before the 2025 bathing season and we are hoping this will improve the classification from poor to sufficient status at least. Data from the 2024 bathing season will help with the planning and provide information to help us shape this.
We are currently in the preliminary phase of our investigation.
Next Steps:
- Identify and impliment temporary solution at Lower Largo
- Continue to work, in parallel on a long-term solution
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Review the signage with Fife Council, to ensure correct and consistent messaging and advice to swimmers.
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Liaise with all the required stakeholders and engage with the local community throughout
Community Engagement
Scottish Water is committed to working with the Lower Largo community.
On the 8th June we celebrated World Ocean Day with a visit to Lundin Mill and Kirkton Primary Schools. We spent the morning speaking to enthusiastic young people about:
- Where their water comes from
- Why we should use less and try and save water
- How waste water is treated and where it goes
- Our Nature calls campaign
All our customers can play a huge part in preventing debris in rivers and on beaches. Our national campaign ‘Nature Calls’ urges customers not to flush wet wipes (and other items) down the toilet and we are calling for a complete ban on the sale of wet wipes containing plastic.
