Felling permission and restocking order over a Caravan Site exemption certificate for the site known as Garden Cottage: EIR release

Information requested

We wish to raise an FOI in regard to the caravan application from Caledonian touring club. We require all emails and computer files and telephone calls and any other form of communication originating from North Ayrshire Council, local councillors, and the [REDACTED] from Eglinton house with particular interest in North Ayrshire planning department and local councillors. This request includes all communications from [REDACTED] within the Hamilton office. Just to clarify, this is a new FOISA request and it is for all the information that Scottish Forestry has received from external sources and all information that has been issued in connection to this request internally and to external sources.

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.

Response to your request

I have attached all the information we hold regarding your request.

An exception under regulation 11(2) and regulation 11(1) of the EIRs (personal information of the requester and personal information related to third parties) 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. You will find more information related to these exceptions below in Annex A.

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.​​​​​​​

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.

EIR 202600510879 - Information Released - Annex

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