Forestry Grant Scheme information: EIR release

Information requested

1. How many woodland creation applications approved under the current FGS in Scotland had the WEAG impact assessment submitted as a part of the application process (please provide a list)?

2. What is the area of arable and mixed-use land (defined as LCA classes 1-4) approved to date be planted with trees under the current FGS?

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) Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(b) (Manifestly unreasonable requests) of the EIRs applies to the information you have requested. We cannot report on the number of applicants who provide an Agricultural Impact Assessment (AIA) with their woodland creation application, whilst we hold this information, to collate figures to answer the question would require the search of more than 1,800 project record files to establish if an AIA was provided and this is the reason the exception has been applied.

Please see Annex A for the reason this exception applies.

2) We do not routinely compile data about the area of LCA 1-4 planted with trees under the forestry grant scheme. However, data on Land Capability for Agriculture is freely available from The James Hutton Institute, as is our Woodland Creation data from our own website. Our data is available from the Open Data Portal: Scottish Forestry - Open Data Portal and I hope this proves useful to you.

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.

EIR 202500455011 - Information released - Annex A

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