Cala Homes planning permission Aberdour: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
1. Records of any communications from Cala Homes, its subsidiary companies or any of its representatives or agents to any of the Scottish Ministers or their policy officials relating to its application for planning permission to develop on Land South of Main Street, Aberdour, now the subject of DPEA appeal PPA-250-2312.
2. Records of any communications from any of the Scottish Ministers or their policy officials to Cala Homes, its subsidiary companies or any of its representative or agents relating to Cala’s application for planning permission to develop on Land South of Main Street, Aberdour, now the subject of DPEA appeal PPA-250-2312.
3. Records of any communications from Homes for Scotland to the Scottish Ministers or their policy officials relating to SESPlan2 housing targets following the SESPlan2 Examination Report and any responses given by or on behalf of the Scottish Ministers.
Response
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.
1. I have carried out a search for correspondence within the remit you have specified. No documents were found, other than those held on the DPEA case file for the appeal PPA-250-2312.
The majority of the information you have requested is available from the DPEA website at http://www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/CaseDetails.aspx?ID=119936.
Under regulation 6(1)(b) of EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. However, if you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
There were three documents identified which fell within the remit of your request which had not been published to the DPEA website, and these are attached.
2. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.
Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because there has been no correspondence falling within the remit of your request.
This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in the information you
have requested, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.
3. I have attached the documents which fall within the remit of your request.
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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
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