The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

No abstract

Environmental justice is a contested concept. However, it became a high-level policy objective in the United States and, internationally, policy advocates and academics have identified environmental justice as a fundamental part of sustainable development. Policy appraisal, in particular Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), has been cited as a main tool to deliver environmental justice policy. Scotland, a devolved government within the UK, made a high-level policy commitment to environmental justice and linked its delivery to SEA. To evaluate how this was put into practice, this paper analyses Scottish SEA documents produced between 2003 and 2007. The study found that SEA practice in Scotland was not directed towards empirical assessment of environmental justice. More fundamentally, because assessments always reflect specific values, there is no incontestable way to represent environmental justice or injustice empirically. Therefore, this paper argues that environmental justice remains a Utopian goal, with no indisputable means to be achieved.

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is undertaken in more than 60 countries worldwide. Support to the SEA process can range from formal legal requirements to voluntary 'ad hoc' approaches. In the cases where SEA is legally required, such as in Europe where the SEA Directive sets a framework for SEA legislation in 28 countries, practitioners may engage with SEA but in a reluctant way. This paper reports on a unique survey of 203 key people responsible for implementing the SEA legislative requirement in Scotland. The majority (53%) of the 187 practitioners who answered the hypothetical question 'If SEA was not compulsory, would you do it?' said 'Yes'. However, results suggest that the responses were much nuanced. Practitioners were asked to explicate their reasoning and, irrespective of whether the answer was 'yes' or 'no', common themes were evident in accompanying remarks. This paper enables reflection on reasons for acceptance or rejection of the SEA process by discussing: the perception that a similar process to SEA is already being done, the problem with lack of resources, the call for a 'leaner process' and the difficulties of undertaking SEA when conditions are already determined at a higher 'tier'.

Swimming is a popular form of recreation and exercise in the UK and US. Swimming can take place outdoors but, particularly in the UK, largely takes place in designated indoor pools. Existing research tends to focus on 'public' or 'municipal' pools leaving broader spatial geographies of swimming pool provision under explored. In response to concern about swimming pool closures, this paper draws from extensive archival research into all swimming pools in the City of Glasgow, Scotland, since the first opened in 1804. Formal and informal programmes of pool building and closure were revealed. Rather than decreasing, public provision has remained constant for the last 100 years but become progressively more spread out in relation to the city's changing size. Broadening exploration beyond the 'public' category exposed a vast drop in school pool numbers around the year 2000 due to a Private Finance Initiative project that consolidated the secondary school estate and outsourced school building management. The lessons: researching all types of swimming pool through time greatly enriches understandings of the changing meaning and extent of public service provision.