Lost Forest Planting Phase 1 at Kinrara: EIR release

Information requested

If I can ask for one clarification, in EIR response 2023/00390478 dated 22 February 2024 under payments for Phase I of the Lost Forest it was stated "To date the applicant has claimed for the fencing elements and also for the initial planting phase. This equates to £690986.90."

Now I appreciate BrewDog claiming the money is not the same as them having received it but the latest response you have just sent "For phase 1, £806,705.50 was paid in 2023" without any explanation of why this differs from the figure previously supplied (which was actually quoted in my Information request). Could you therefore please clarify which figure is correct?

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.

If I can ask for one clarification, in EIR response 2023/00390478 dated 22 February 2024 under payments for Phase I of the Lost Forest it was stated "To date the applicant has claimed for the fencing elements and also for the initial planting phase. This equates to £690986.90."

Now I appreciate BrewDog claiming the money is not the same as them having received it but the latest response you have just sent "For phase 1, £806,705.50 was paid in 2023" without any explanation of why this differs from the figure previously supplied (which was actually quoted in my Information request). Could you therefore please clarify which figure is correct?

The EIR 2023/00390478 request asked, “how much of the money due to BrewDog this year for Phase 1 of the Lost Forest has been paid”. The response to the EIR stated £690,986.90 had been paid for work due to be delivered in the 2023 claim year.

The response to EIR 2025/00458836 request included an additional £115,718.60 that was due to be paid in 2022, however this paid in 2023, bringing the total of Forestry Grant Scheme payments for Lost Forest Phase 1 paid in 2023 to £806,705.50.

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