Marine pen fish farming: Charging changes

For your views on changes to SEPA charges for the marine fish farm sector to recover the costs of environmental monitoring to investigate the interaction between sea lice from marine fish farms and wild salmon and sea trout.

We received 12 responses to the consultation. Respondents from the fish farming sector recognised that it was appropriate, in principle, for SEPA to recover the costs of sea lice-related monitoring from fish farm operators. They had several concerns about the details of the proposals and told us it was important that charges paid by fish farmers were exclusively for recovering the costs of monitoring sea lice interactions with wild fish (i.e. not other pressures); the monitoring must be more effective than existing monitoring; and, to avoid duplication and unnecessary costs, the monitoring must replace planning permission monitoring requirements. Most respondents from organisations involved in the conservation and management of wild salmon and sea trout told us that they supported the changes in charges and considered that the proposed monitoring programmes would be a significant improvement in how sea lice/wild salmon and sea trout interactions are monitored.

We considered your feedback carefully. We agree with many of the points raised, including that the costs recovered are exclusively the costs of investigating pressure from sea lice from fish farms; the monitoring being carried out under planning permissions should be superseded; monitoring must be scientifically designed to best provide the evidence required; and advice from stakeholder advisory groups should be sought and considered in planning the monitoring for 2026 and beyond, reviewing results and adapting monitoring as appropriate. For points that we have not taken forward, we have explained why we consider the approach we proposed to be more appropriate. You can find information about our consideration of each of the points raised in our Consultation Digest.