Permissions Granted to Scottish Woodlands - Ballyoukan Forest: EIR release

Information requested

all documents, communications and plans (written, electronic or otherwise) pertaining to any permissions approved for Scottish Woodlands related to Ballyoukan Forest since 1975.

This request relates to all materials provided together with all correspondence between the applicant, their representative(s), other relevant stakeholders and Scottish Forestry.

Furthermore, I am requesting all emails and correspondence (in all formats) relating to these application and decisions between Scottish Woodlands, Perth & Kinross Council and Scottish Forestry.

Particular attention is directed towards, but not restricted to, all documentation and correspondence regarding these applications and decisions involving [named officers] at [Perth & Kinross] Council; [named officers] at Scottish Forestry - other connected employees are requested to be included also.

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.

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 the EIRs apply to some of the information you have requested.

The exception which applies is Regulation 11(2), third party personal data. Where this exception applies, the information has been redacted. Please see Annex A for further information on this exception.

There are four approved permissions for Scottish Woodlands related to Ballyoukan Forest since 1975 in our records:

• 1997 Woodland Grant Scheme application for felling and restocking
• 2014 Long Term Forest Plan
• 2022 amendment to the Long Term Forest Plan
• 2021 Environmental Impact Assessment screening for an upgrade to an internal forest road

Due to the volume of documents relating to these permissions, these will be emailed to you separately. If you have any issues accessing the documents, please contact us at scottish.forestry@forestry.gov.scot, quoting reference 2022/00332341.

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.