Nuclear sites, King Charles' childhood school and a famous battlefield were among nearly 1,000 sites across Scotland which broke environmental rules in the past two years.

The Dounreay nuclear facility in Caithness was found to be in breach of rules on eleven occasions in recent years, making it one of the most frequent offenders in Scotland.

Dounreay - which houses radioactive waste - was a hub of nuclear research between the 1950s and 1990s but is now the site of the largest nuclear clean up in Scotland. There was also a breach at the Faslane naval base, although this did not involve radioactivity.

Gordonstoun School in Moray - which the King attended between 1962 and 1967 - the visitor centre at the Culloden battlefield, and a host of whisky distilleries have also been rapped.

The findings come from data released to The Ferret by the Scottish Government's green watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The agency kept a further 25 sites which had broken rules secret. The Ferret understands this is because they house radioactive materials which governments fear could be targeted by terrorists aiming to build a dirty bomb.

That's twice a day that companies are disregarding the environment, at the expense of all of us.

Kim Pratt, Friends of the Earth Scotland

Campaigners described it as "alarming" that environmental rule breaking was being uncovered "every 12 hours in Scotland".

One opposition politician questioned why "repeat offenders are continuing to get away with non-compliance" and suggested Sepa may need to "pursue more cases through to prosecution".

Sepa said compliance with Scotland's environmental laws is "non-negotiable" and that it is taking "effective action against those who have failed to comply" with rules.

'New approach'

Sepa issues authorisations to businesses to carry out activities which could cause pollution to the environment.

Sepa determines whether companies are complying with the rules laid out in these authorisations by carrying out inspections and sampling at business and industry sites across the country. Companies also report breaches to Sepa themselves.

The agency used to publish annual reports on its website which ranked over 5,000 sites' environmental performance on a scale from 'very poor' to 'excellent'.

Previous sites to be damned for their performance included Gordonstoun, Donald Trump's golf courses, and the luxury five-star Gleneagles hotel.

But the last of these reports was for 2019 and information about environmental rule breaking has not been available in recent years, which Sepa blames on the Covid-19 pandemic and a criminal cyber attack in late 2020. The attack caused the body to lose a host of information on environmental checks and pollution breaches.

Cost of Sepa cyber attack doubles to £5.5m

In the aftermath of these issues, Sepa said it was developing a "new approach" to compliance. As The Ferret reported in 2023, campaigners and a former Sepa boss feared that this would impact transparency and mean the body stopped publicly naming and shaming businesses who flout rules.

Compliance information for 2023 and 2024 was only released following a freedom of information request by The Ferret. Detailed information about the reasons for breaches was not provided.

Sepa says the new compliance information is not comparable to the assessments prior to 2020 because it includes "different parameters". Sites are considered either 'compliant', 'non-compliant', or 'major non-compliant' at different times but are not given an overall rating.

In total, 966 sites were found to be breaking rules at least once in the last two years and there were 1,616 instances of non-compliance overall, although some of these might be minor administrative issues. Over 600 of the breaches were in the more serious 'major non-compliant' category.

Many facilities that Sepa regulates were not assessed in that period, meaning the extent of rule breaking could be even higher. "The number of authorisat...