Energy Consents Unit (ECU) officials meeting with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) and Scottish Power: EIR release

Information requested

1. In the period 1 January 2025 to 28 January 2026, on how many occasions have officials at the Energy Consents Unit met with SSEN, Scottish Power, or any other company involved in the transmission or distribution of electricity in Scotland (please specify).

2. In the period 1 January 2025 to 28 January 2026, on how many occasions have officials at the Energy Consents Unit met with campaigners opposed to pylons (please specify).

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.

I shall address each of your points in turn:

Point 1 – there have been 105 occasions where Energy Consents Unit (ECU) officials have met with SSEN and Scottish Power during the time period of 1 January 2025 to 28 January 2026.

ECU officials meet with applicants such as SSEN and Scottish Power as necessary in the process of administering applications for energy consents.

Point 2 – there have been 0 occasions where ECU officials have met with campaigners opposed to pylons during the time period of 1 January 2025 to 28 January 2026.

ECU officials do not routinely meet with campaigners to discuss applications which may ultimately be submitted to and determined by the Scottish Ministers.

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