Stromar Project: Landfall Communications and Harbour Engagement: EIR release

Information requested

1. Communication with Sandhaven and Pitullie Harbour Trust

Please provide:

• Records of any communication between the Stromar project team (including developers or consultants acting on their behalf) and the Sandhaven and Pitullie Harbour Trust, whether written or verbal (where minutes or notes exist).
• The type and purpose of any communications recorded with the Harbour Trust.
• Any documentation referring to community benefit proposals, harbour infrastructure upgrades, or other local enhancements linked to use of the eastern landfall route

2. Discussion of Landfall Options

Please provide:

• All correspondence, internal memos, consultant reports, or meeting notes discussing the change in preferred landfall from the eastern route (Sandhaven area) to the alternative western location within the scoping boundary.
• Any assessments or discussions regarding technical constraints, environmental factors, or stakeholder feedback that influenced this change.
• Confirmation of whether RSPB Scotland or NatureScot were consulted specifically on the onshore implications of the alternative western landfall.

3. Scoping Boundary and Addendum Consideration

Please include:

• Any internal emails, meeting records, or formal decisions regarding the use of the red-line boundary to justify including the western landfall within the original Scoping Report without issuing a Scoping Addendum.
• Any records of internal or external discussion regarding the appropriateness or procedural risk of not issuing a formal addendum.
• Any correspondence with or advice sought from the Energy Consents Unit (ECU) regarding this matter.

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 an exception under regulation 11(2) personal information of a third party and regulation 10(4) (a) information not held applies.

1. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies. Under the terms of this exception, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in the Stromar development and Sandhaven and Pitullie Harbour Trust, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

2. 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 applies under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) 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.

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies. Under the terms of this exception, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in the red-line boundary, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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 202500472584 - Information released - Annex

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