Publication - FOI/EIR release

Information regarding design and funding of Picardy Place: FOI release

Published: 2 November 2017
Topic: Building, planning and design, Public sector

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

FOI reference: FOI/17/02184
Date received: 28 September 2017
Date responded: 26 October 2017

Information requested

Correspondence with the City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Futures Trust and/or people acting on behalf of the St James Quarter developers, where the design and funding of Picardy Place, in Edinburgh was discussed; and
All meeting papers, Scottish Government briefing notes, power point presentations or other materials held by the Scottish Government and consumed by the Growth Accelerator Model Oversight group since its inception.

Response

In relation to your first question, I have attached extracts from correspondence about the business case which relate to Picardy Place, at Annex A.2. In Annex A.1, I have also attached text from the Growth Accelerator agreement from October 2016 which relates to Picardy Place and its place within the St James Growth Accelerator. I have also attached the plan of Picardy Place that accompanies that agreement, at Annex D.

For the second part of question 1., I have attached correspondence between the Scottish Government and any party working on behalf of the St James Quarter developers in relation to this from September 2017, at Annex B. For that same paper there is an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (personal information) which applies to a small amount of the information within the paper. This is because it is personal data of a third party, ie name and contact details of an individual, and disclosure would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998.

This exemption is not subject to the public interest test, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

In relation to your second question, I enclose a copy of the information you requested, at Annex C. Information which is outwith the scope of the request has not been released.

Title	Format	Size
Annex A1 & A2 - Growth accelerator agreement and correspondence	PDF	889.09KB
Annex B - SG Correspondence	PDF	3.93MB
Annex C - Progress Report Details	PDF	1.18MB
Annex D - Plan of Picardie Place	PDF	175.5KB

Due to the file size of Annex B, copies can be provided on request by emailing ceu@gov.scot, quoting the FOI reference number FOI/17/02184

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