Correspondence regarding Schiehallion woodland creation by John Muir Trust: EIR release

Information requested

All correspondence between yourselves and the John Muir Trust regarding the development of a native woodland/ montane woodland scheme at their property on Schiehallion in Perthshire, any internal communications within Scottish Forestry and for any communications between yourselves and any third party on this matter. I would like to obtain any information from 10th May 2022, to tie in with information previously requested in this manner. Any information should include maps and habitat assessments, and all written and email communications.

I am particularly interested in all communications relating to discussions on Environmental Impact Assessment and its determination/ consideration.

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response

Given the volume of documents included in our response, copies of the information we hold in relation to your request will be emailed to you separately.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (Personal data relating to third party) apply to some of the information you have requested. This information has been redacted in the documents.

The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in Annex A to this letter.

In addition, some elements of the documents have been redacted where information falls outside the scope of your request (e.g. where cases other than the one in question are being discussed), or to avoid duplication with other documents (e.g. where an email has been responded to in parallel by multiple correspondents).

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202300357341 - Annex

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