Native woodland scheme at Schiehallion correspondence: 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 25th July 2024 to present, 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. We believe that EIA consent has now been given, but FOI appears to be the only way for us to determine why this has been. We have been given no feedback to representations previously made.

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.

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 an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information you have requested, and this has been redacted in the documentation.

*Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above.
If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

Please see Annex A for the reason this exception applies.

ANNEX A

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

Personal data relating to third party

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception 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 exception.

About FOI

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