Planning Permission Appeal (PPA) decisions that have involved the erection of a single dwelling house: EIR release

Information requested

I would be grateful if you could provide the following information held by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA):

1. A list of all Planning Permission Appeal (PPA) decisions issued between 1 October 2023 and 27 April 2026, where the proposed development involved the erection of a single dwellinghouse on a brownfield, vacant, or derelict site anywhere in Scotland.

2. For each case, please provide the following fields where held:
a. Case reference number
b. Local Planning Authority
c. Site address
d. Brief description of the proposed development
e. Date of decision
f. Decision outcome (allowed or dismissed)
g. Name of appointed reporter
h. NPF4 policies referenced in the decision notice

If it would assist in processing this request, I would be content to receive the information in a spreadsheet format (e.g. CSV or Excel), and I am happy for any free-text fields to be limited to a short summary.

If you consider that any part of this request falls outside the scope of FOISA, I would be grateful if you could advise me accordingly and provide whatever information can be disclosed, rather than refusing the request in its entirety.

Response

The information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIR’s), 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 a response to your request. To explain what has been provided I break down the response into the 2 points raised for ease:

Point 1

I am able to provide you with a list of all PPA decisions issued between 01 October 2023 and 27 April 2026, where the proposed development involved the erection of a single dwellinghouse.

We do not define cases according to brownfield, vacant or derelict sites, therefore we do not hold this information. In some instances this information may be referenced in the decision notices if applicable, however we are not able to provide you with an exact list.

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.

Point 2

I am able to provide you with the majority of the information you have requested namely 2 a,b,c,d,e,f,g, however 2 h is not a criteria we define cases by and therefore do not hold this information in the format you require. The information will however be included in the decision notice in each case and is therefore available in that format.

For ease, I include the link to the portal for you to access all decisions listed in the attachment: Scottish Government - DPEA - Case List

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 202600515582 - Information released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

18.2 kB