Sepa undone

IT was with resignation that I read your front-page article (29 January) on Sepa's inability to follow its own advice. During my two four-year stints on a Sepa board, my fellow members' formidable experience complemented the technical professionalism of Sepa officials we were engaged to advise. Yet, despite this competent, motivated brainpower in defence of our environment, the net effect was an otherworldliness, such as in academia or monastic orders.

Certainly, Sepa officials do monitor, inspect and, occasionally, prosecute in defence of standards but, like the brilliant professor who forgets to wear matching socks, Sepa's connection with the everyday that concerns us mortals can seem tenuous.

Perhaps most telling is Sepa's attitude to regional offices. Even assuming that all 22 are necessary, the inaccessibility of most and the bog-standard office buildings they inhabit show scant leadership in green design. Their newest at Torry is a long walk round the harbour from central Aberdeen because, like their Stirling HQ, it's not even served by local bus. Though field operatives must drive to the sites they inspect, the bulk of Sepa's carbon foot-print is staff travel to and from work by car.

So, when Sepa blithely adds another 3.4 million in costs to its 1,500 staff,or when its chief executive declines his minister's and his boss's joint suggestion that he forego a 10 per cent bonus on his 100,000 salary, this sense of otherworldliness – more monetary than monastic – is, for me, reinforced to the point that undoubted good work done by front-line Sepa staff is being undermined and debased.

DAVID S BERRY

Balderstones Wynd

North Berwick, East Lothian