Details of Marine Fund Scotland application by Norwegian Mountain Salmon: EIR release

Information requested

1. Details of an application to the Marine Fund Scotland by Norwegian Mountain Salmon for a project in the Shetland Islands local authority area; and

2. The reasons for this application being refused.

You also clarified the reason for the EIR request in an email of 8 January 2026 -

I had understood from local media reports that Norwegian Mountain Salmon had applied to Marine Fund Scotland in relation to exploring a Shetland site:

“NMS’s chief executive Bård Hjelmen said lack of support from the Scottish Government made investigating a more likely site at Lewis the company’s priority." “At both locations studies must be carried out to determine whether the site is suitable, but the likelihood of receiving positive results from these investigations is higher on Lewis,” he said. “We applied to [the Scottish Government’s] Marine Fund Scotland for support or risk mitigation for these studies, but unfortunately our application was not successful. As a result, when we move forward we will need to prioritise the Lewis location.” “Norwegian Mountain Salmon favours Lewis over Shetland for underground pens."

Was there any engagement regarding a proposed site in Shetland, perhaps a pre-application enquiry?

Response

1. The answer to your question is Norwegian Mountain Salmon (NMS) have not made an application to the Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) for a project in the Shetland Islands local authority area.

2. In 2024 they did apply to the MFS for a project based on Lewis. This application was rejected because NMS did not provide sufficient evidence of costs & therefore the application did not meet the MFS eligibility criteria.

3. You ask in your clarification if there was any pre-application enquiry. We have searched our records and do not have any record of any correspondence from NMS regarding a Shetland based project that was seeking MFS funding.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because there are no MFS applications which fit the terms of the request.

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 information about Norwegian Mountain Salmon, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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