Scottish Forestry - Revised hydrological assessment information and correspondence regarding Carlinden Burn: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
1. The revised hydrological assessment for Carlinden Burn (25FGS86479), including all supporting datasets, raw outputs, and GIS mapping files.
2. All correspondence (emails, internal notes, Teams messages, memos) between Scottish Forestry, the applicant, consultants and hydrology reviewers relating to hydrological concerns or revisions from 1 March 2024 to present.
3. Any internal hydrology review comments, instructions or assessments created by SF staff regarding this proposal.
4. Any versions or drafts of hydrology reports submitted during this period.
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 the information we hold in relation to your request.
An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data 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. As such, some data has been redacted. 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.
An exception under Regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs (Confidentiality of commercial information in relation to private water supplies - PWS) applies to some of the requested information because it relates to information supplied to the Conservancy and the Scottish Forestry’s National Office in its role as a regulator by members of the community, the applicant or other public bodies, revealing the exact location of private water supplies (PWS), which are vulnerable to disruption or pollution. This exception is subject to the public interest test, and we have a statutory obligation to apply it.
Under Regulation 10(5)(e), I assumed disclosure when applying the exception and weighed the public interest in either maintaining or disclosing the information. Although we recognise there may be public interest in releasing all the information, I have concluded that, on balance, the public interest supports upholding the exception, as disclosing this specific type of information would have an adverse effect not only on the economic interests of the applicant but also on others, since households depend on these supplies. Therefore, it is crucial to protect them from the impacts of land use changes and forestry operations.
Where this exemption applies, information has either been redacted or withheld completely where redaction is unable to prevent disclosure of the location of private water supplies.
As you will see from the schedule attached in Annex A, 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.
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. 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 is an absolute exception that 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 is an absolute exception that 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.
Protection of the environment to which the information relates
An exception under regulation 10 (5) (g) of the EIRs (protection of the environment) applies to some of the information requested because it would make public the locations of nesting and breeding sites of species protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and other protected species designations.
This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. In this instance we consider that while there may be a public interest in disclosing this information as it may contribute to the transparency of decision making on the application in question, this interest is outweighed by the public interest arising from the protection of these protected species from the potential risk that would arise from publishing their exact nesting and breeding locations, for example from disturbance, egg collection, nest/sett destruction, etc.
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