The U.K. government’s recent promise to remove regulatory red tape across industries has brought fresh hope to Scotland’s salmon industry that authorities will heed its calls to simplify the permitting process for new farm sites.
The overly complicated process of securing new farm site permits has been a stated problem of Scotland’s salmon industry for several years now.
In 2022, Russel Griggs, the current chair of the South of Scotland Enterprise, conducted an independent review of how Scottish salmon farms are regulated, after which he delivered a series of recommendations to the Scottish government.
Noting that since 2020 around 60 fish farm applications had missed their consent decision deadlines, he advised consolidating the four regulators that each operate under different time frames for approving applications into one entity that’s solely responsible for leading the consenting process.
Griggs’s recommendations were accepted by the then-Scottish Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon, but not much has happened since, Salmon Scotland CEO Tavish Scott told SeafoodSource.
However, with the U.K. government now acknowledging that businesses across many industries are being hindered by red tape, Salmon Scotland has reiterated its call to have Griggs’s proposals implemented.
“If they were to really drive forward the recommendations that Griggs made in respect to that one-stop shop [framework], I think it would be advantageous both to the government and to the sector. It would make sure that Scotland is seen as open and ready to do business,” Scott said. “It doesn't stop any of the opposition. It doesn't stop people having the right to object to the applications. That's, of course, how it should be here in the United Kingdom.”
Scott underlined that the nation’s salmon-farming industry does not have an issue with the regulations in place to oversee the sector. The issues, instead, lie with the regulations’ inefficiency.
“We’ve got to be good environmental custodians of the areas we farm in; otherwise, we wouldn't be allowed to continue. We're rightly regulated on that. Good regulation also helps us sell fish. It's part of the package that we use for both sales and marketing,” he said. “It just needs to be done in the right way – whereby the regulators and government recognize that the most important people in the room aren't the fish producers; they’re the supermarkets, the buyers, and the consumers of fish. That's the bit I think government and regulators miss.”
Another thorn in the salmon industry’s side …
