Scottish Forestry - East Netershield Woodland Creation Scheme correspondence: EIR relaese
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
We acknowledge receipt of your email and attached letter issued earlier today.
We find ourselves yet again having to issuing further correspondence correcting serious misrepresentation of the facts from our Government representative. This time recording that our correspondence can in no way we referred to as "general", the points and issues that we have raised and recorded throughout this process have been detailed and supported by evidence , previously c onfirmed by Scottish Forestry (SF) initial representatives as all "considered and relevant". You have clearly not read the detail of the correspondence within the Case History, in that if you had, you will know that the ongoing communication is a direct result of your Government organisations continuing to ignore the recorded detailed evidence, and responding with general communication omitting evidence based answers, in some cases completely ignoring the issues recorded and referring to unrelated points. The detail of the case has been recorded and referred to by the community and it is our Government who has attempted to communicate with general responses which on many occasions have had no substance or credibility.
Your latest letter only goes to provide further evidence that rather than answering the issues raised, our Government has taken the decision to attempt to silence the Public evidence, and try to bury the outstanding issues and not provide answers. It is very clear that your 3 letters over the past month is a direct attempt to close communication prior to having to answer the outstanding issue, yet again attempting to encourage and now force the communication into an internal SF complaints process. As communicated on numerous occasion, we will obtain all the outstanding evidence before formulating a detailed and evidence based complaint to both SF and directly to the SG Complaints Team. It is staggering how much communication SF have issued encouraging a complaint to be issued, at the same time ignoring and not answering the issues recorded in the public communication. This community knew why SF wished us to issue a complaint at a very early stage of the process. If the facts and evidence are going to be ignored in Public Regulated Due Process, why would a Complaint Investigation carried out by the same organisation change this organisation Culture.
We record yet again that Scottish Forestry have not answered all outstanding questions, as they assured they would in previous correspondence. If you read the correspondence you will see all the answers and evidence that are outstanding. To continue to ensure the evidence is at the forefront of the truth in this case, we will now issue FOIR requests to all Government Departments and all those involved in this case for us to obtain all the outstanding information that will form part of the formal complaint to our Government.
Your comments again seriously misrepresents the truth and disrespects the Public. We consider this to be a serious Public Interest issue, that must be dealt with.
As it is yourself that has issued the last 3 letters to us, making the statements that you have, please accept the following as a formal Public Interest Freedom of information Request to yourself.
1. Regarding this Case , please issue a schedule of ALL correspondence , presentations and transcripts of meetings, which you refer to in your letter dated in 22nd October 2025 when stating "Having reviewed the points your raised". You have made important Public Interest Statements and it is critical that there is full transparency on what information is the basis of your decisions, which affect the Public including outstanding Public safety and wellbeing issues.
2. Regarding this Case, please provide copies of all correspondence, and transcripts of any verbal communication you have personally had with any of the following representatives; You will note this is a similar list of those involved in this case, which was part of our communication at the end of 2024, when SF referred to carrying out an internal investigation. As you are aware, or should be aware, the attached detailed communication was ignored and never responded to by SF.
- First Minister, John Swinney?
- Cabinet Secretary, Mairi Gougeon?
- MSP, Mairi McAllan?
- MSP, Brian Whittle?
- Minister of Agriculture, Jim Fairlie?
- Director, Agriculture & Rural Economy, W George Burges?
- RPID Representatives?
- Scottish Forestry Representatives, Tom Hobbs, Simon Franks, Keith Wishart and
- Brendan Callaghan?
- Any other Scottish Forestry Representatives, including senior management.
- NFUS Representatives?
- Neighbours (Signatories of the Letter to the Cabinet Secretary)?
- South Lanarkshire Council Representatives from Road and Planning Services?
- Community Council Representatives?
- Tilhill Representatives?
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.
Please find attached all the information we hold in relation to your request.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, we are unable to provide some of the information you requested because an exception under Regulation 11 (2) of the EIRs (personal data relating to a third party) applies, as does an exception under Regulation 11 (1) of the EIRs (personal data of the applicant). These are absolute exceptions, and neither is subject to the public interest test. You will be able to identify where the personal data has been redacted in the documents released.
ANNEX A
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION
Personal data relating to the applicant
An exception under Regulation 11(1) of the EIRs(personal information of the applicant) applies to some of the information requested because it is your personal data and is therefore exempt from release. FOI/EIR disclosures are public information, and withholding your personal data is intended to protect you in the same way that withholding personal data of third parties (see below) is intended to protect them. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.
Personal data relating to a third party
An exception under Regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies 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 whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.
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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG