Scottish Forestry grant payments for the Lost Forest, phases 1 and 2: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
https://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2025/03/24/brewdogs-lost-forest-and-the-scottish-forestrygrants- scandal/,
I am requesting the following information about relating to grant payments for the Lost Forest, phases 1 and 2:
1) A previous Information Request in 2024 (Your refer 2023/00390478) established that Scottish Forestry had paid £690,986.90 towards the Lost Forest by February 2024 but I failed to ask when the first payment was paid. I am now asking how much of this sum was paid in 2024 and how much, if any, in 2023 and if so to whom? The reason I am requesting this is that the Lost Forest Ltd's financial statements do not record any receipt of forestry grants up to the end of December 2023 although payments were, according to the contract, due before then.
2) Of the £1.2m the Herald
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25018419.brewdog-replace-250-000-dead-saplings-newforest/ recently revealed Scottish Forestry had paid for the Lost Forest to date, how much of this was for Phase 1 and how much for Phase 2? More specifically, please provide any information you hold about the Phase 1 grant to the Lost Forest due to date has been withheld due to the death of so many trees.
3) You have previously provided me a copy of the contract for Phase 1 of the Lost Forest. Please now provide me with a copy of the contract for Phase 2.
4) Please confirm whether any further inspections have taken place of the Phase I planting since that in September 2023 (for which you provided the information you held) and if so provide me with any reports into its findings.
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) A previous Information Request in 2024 (Your refer 2023/00390478) established that Scottish Forestry had paid £690,986.90 towards the Lost Forest by February 2024 but I failed to ask when the first payment was paid. I am now asking how much of this sum was paid in 2024 and how much, if any, in 2023 and if so to whom? The reason I am requesting this is that the Lost Forest Ltd's financial statements do not record any receipt of forestry grants up to the end of December 2023 although payments were, according to the contract, due before then.
Payments were made to the Business Reference Number Lost Forest Ltd, Brewdog, Balmacassie Drive, Balmacassie Commercial Park, Ellon. For phase 1, £806,705.50 was paid in 2023 and £74,859.66 in 2024. For phase 2, £225,855.72 was paid in 2024.
2) Of the £1.2m the Herald https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25018419.brewdog-replace-250-000-dead-saplings-new-forest/ recently revealed Scottish Forestry had paid for the Lost Forest to date, how much of this was for Phase 1 and how much for Phase 2? More specifically, please provide any information you hold about the Phase 1 grant to the Lost Forest due to date has been withheld due to the death of so many trees.
Grants paid to date total £1,107,420.88. £881,565.16 for Phase 1 and £225,855.72 for phase 2. No grant has been withheld from Phase 1.
3) You have previously provided me a copy of the contract for Phase 1 of the Lost Forest. Please now provide me with a copy of the contract for Phase 2.
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) and 10(5)(g) of the EIRs (protection of the environment) applies to some of the information you have requested.
Please see Annex A for the reason(s) this/these exception(s) apply.
4) Please confirm whether any further inspections have taken place of the Phase I planting since that in September 2023 (for which you provided the information you held) and if so provide me with any reports into its findings.
No further inspections have taken place.
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Contact
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Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
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