Publication - FOI/EIR release

Carlinden Burn afforestation proposal: EIR Review

Published: 11 November 2025
Topic: Farming and rural, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202500476633 Review of 202500472296
Date received: 20 July 2025
Date responded: 19 August 2025

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

Original Request 202500472296

1. Internal Communications and Decision-Making
All internal emails, memos, meeting notes, MS Teams chats or other correspondence between Scottish Forestry staff relating to the Carlinden Burn proposal.

Any internal documents or discussions regarding:

Consideration of EIA thresholds under the Forestry (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017,
Evaluation of environmental sensitivity (e.g. Private Water Supplies, peatland, wetland, protected species, wildfire risk, cultural heritage),
The project's compliance with the UK Forestry Standard (UKFS) and alignment with Scottish Government land use objectives.

2. External Correspondence
All correspondence (emails, letters, meeting notes, phone call records) between Scottish Forestry and:

The planner known as EJD, including any emails or communications where a representative of EJD is the author, recipient, or mentioned in relation to this project.
Foresight Sustainable Forestry or Averon Park,
Consultants engaged in the proposal (including TransTech),
Statutory bodies such as SEPA, NatureScot, and Aberdeenshire Council,
Local residents, members of the public, or community groups,
Elected officials including councillors or MSPs,

3. Public Engagement and Consultation Handling
Records relating to the consultation process, including:

Dates and content of all documents published to the Public Register,
Internal discussions or decisions regarding delays, timing, or completeness of public-facing materials,
Responses to requests for consultation extensions, and rationale for any granted or denied,
Records of any consideration given to community engagement obligations under UKFS and FGS guidance.

4. Comments and Representations
A full copy of all public comments, objections, or representations submitted to Scottish Forestry in relation to this case.
Any internal summaries, assessments, or responses to these public comments.

5. Technical Assessments and Supporting Material
All documentation (drafts and final) relating to:

EIA screening assessments or checklists,
Hydrological and habitat assessments,
Mapping, GIS datasets, or site classification data used in decision-making,
Site visit records or inspection notes,
Guidance, feedback, or instructions provided to or received from the applicant or their consultants.

6. Complaints, Procedural Integrity, and Risk Handling
Internal discussions regarding:

Concerns about adherence to policy, process, or UKFS standards during the handling of this proposal,
Any reputational or procedural risks identified in relation to this case,
Any internal or external complaints or criticisms received regarding Scottish Forestry’s handling of this application and any documentation relating to how these were addressed.

If any part of this request is likely to exceed the allowable cost threshold, I would appreciate the opportunity to refine or prioritise specific sections. Please consider partial or staged disclosure where appropriate and prioritise internal and external correspondence, and public consultation-related materials if necessary.

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) and have decided that the original decision should be upheld with modifications, as outlined below.

"I am writing to formally request an internal review of your response to my Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) request, reference 202500472296, concerning the Carlinden Burn afforestation proposal. While I appreciate the release of public-facing materials, I must express concern that:

Key internal communications and decision-making rationale were withheld under Regulation 10(4)(e), Critical information relating to environmental sensitivity, screening assessments, and policy compliance was not disclosed.
The justification provided for non-disclosure appears overly broad, particularly as the afforestation proposal in question did already enter the public register and has been under active community scrutiny.
This project involves significant public interest, including the use of public funds via the Forestry Grant Scheme, impacts on private water supplies, potential UKFS non-compliance, and public objections already submitted. The decisions made are not confidential government strategy; they are statutory planning functions carried out on behalf of the public, with material environmental impact.

I therefore request a full internal review of the decision to withhold the following:

Internal communications and deliberations regarding EIA screening thresholds and the UKFS compliance of the proposal;
Summaries or internal evaluations of public comments and objections;

Site visit notes or hydrological/habitat mapping used in screening;
Any internal concerns, reputational risks, or procedural inconsistencies identified. In my view, the public interest in transparent governance, environmental protection, and regulatory accountability outweighs any claimed interest in withholding these communications. Moreover, I do not seek sensitive species locations or personal data, and I believe redaction is a more proportionate remedy than blanket exemption."

Your review request
"You requested a review, arguing that one of the three exceptions applied to the information released in our response to your request, ref. no. 202500472296, namely, under Regulation 10 (4) (e) of the EIRs, was too broad, resulting in documents being withheld.*

In relation to the 258 documents released:

I conducted a thorough re-examination of our original decision. I carefully reviewed all the documents, which were sent to you in multiple emails. Firstly, I want to reassure you that the file that could not be opened and was re-sent to you could not be opened solely due to administrative reasons, rather than any IT-related issues. I apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience in waiting for the documents. I have reviewed all the files sent to you and can open each one, having done so at least three or four times. If, however, you are unable to view any of the 258 documents (this number excludes a couple of duplicates that you received; we apologise for this. The duplicates were sent close together, so you should be able to see clearly where the same document was attached twice or three times.) Please do let me know, and I will resend those to you immediately.

In this process, I have also identified that two files containing internal communications and/or email exchanges with various stakeholders were illegible or difficult to read. I have included these two files, among others, to be released with this review response.

I cross-checked the documents you received against the previous and new search results I requested specifically for the purpose of this review. I have also checked the exceptions applied to each file and confirmed that the exceptions applied to the 258 released files were correctly applied with no instances of over-redacting documents. By examining the redacted information, you can assess for yourself what could be in these specific places, such as email exchanges or parts of email addresses. You can find the complete list of exceptions in one of the columns in the Schedule of the documents released with the original response to the EIR-202500472296, enclosed here as Annex B.

I noticed that the file names are sometimes not informative enough about their contents or can be confusing, for example, they contain the word “map” even though the actual file includes email exchanges related to maps. I added a column for the document type to enhance transparency and a column with a date to assist transparency in decision-making processes, which can be verified by examining the documents since the dates are extracted from within them.

In relation to the information withheld:
As you will see from the schedule attached in Annex B, an exception under 10 (5) (g) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) applies to some of the documents. This exception allows a Scottish public authority to withhold environmental information if its disclosure would or would likely cause substantial prejudice to the protection of the environment. I decided to uphold this exception, as well as the exception 10 (5) (e) of the EIRs (commercial confidentiality), as explained in detail in Annex A below.

When it comes to the information withheld under Regulation 10 (4) (e) of the EIRs, which is, as you rightly stated in your review request, subject to the public interest test, this information was transferred from the Conservancy in three folders named: additional emails; screenshots FGS; screenshots WCP. I have decided to modify the original decision in one out of these three instances/folders.

You will see from the information contained in the attached documents listed in Annex C that I have decided to release the additional internal emails and exchanges with stakeholders, which were previously considered to fall under Regulation 10 (4) (e) of the EIRs and therefore withheld. I have carefully considered all the circumstances and have decided that it would be beneficial for transparency to allow you to see all the email exchanges grouped by individual conservancy staff member as received, including duplicates across their inboxes. As most of this information pertains to you personally, with only personal data being withheld under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs. The reasons why this exception applies are set out in Annex A to this letter below.

With regard to the 22 screenshots of ongoing internal communications captured in Scottish Forestry’s Conservancy internal case management and application systems, I have determined that these should be withheld under exception 10 (4) (e). The reasons why this exception applies are set out in Annex A of this letter.

These include the 10 screenshots in the folder 'screenshots FGS' and the 12 in 'screenshots WCP', which Conservancy transferred. This information is already available elsewhere in 258 files you have received in various formats and documents provided in response to your request. This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’, and we have a statutory obligation to apply this test. Therefore, considering all the circumstances of this case, we have evaluated whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exception. We have concluded that, on balance, the public interest supports upholding the exception. Although we recognise there may be public interest in releasing all the information, the incomplete and partial internal communication and ongoing data collection could be confusing or even misleading.

I can now confirm that all the information we hold within the scope of your request, except for the 22 screenshots of the internal case management system mentioned above, which have been identified and transferred by the Conservancy to the National Office, has been released to you. This includes all internal communications and communications with stakeholders in both the public and private sectors, as well as members of the public.

The schedule of the documents released at the review stage is now enclosed as Annex B of this response letter, and exceptions applied to the new documents released are listed below in Annex A.

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