Information regarding Altan native woodland: EIR release

Information requested

I have looked on the online map viewer and can find no information about the Altan native woodland as the West end of Loch Glascarnoch on the road to Ullapool [...] Could you please confirm:

a) whether it was planted with any financial assistance from the Forestry Commission (as it then was)

b) if so, provide the information you hold on how much grant assistance was provided and over what years and for what?

c) any conditions attached to the provision of financial assistance

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

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested.

The exception which applies is Regulation 10(4)(a), information not held. This exception applies because some of the information requested was not held by Scottish Forestry at the time of your request, as noted below.

a) whether [the area] was planted with any financial assistance from the Forestry Commission (as it then was)
We have searched our records and can confirm that the K-shaped area on your screenshot, south of Loch Glascarnogh at its west end and bordered by Abhainn a’ Ghiubhais to the west, was the subject of an application under the then iteration of the Woodland Grant Scheme (WGS-1) under the name “Lochliuchart Estate 4 (Altan)”.

The application was approved by the Forestry Commission on 16th February 1990. The scheme consisted of 222.8 hectares of new planting and the total scheme area was 242.5 hectares.

Screenshots of the grant record are attached.

b) if so, provide the information you hold on how much grant assistance was provided and over what years and for what?

c) any conditions attached to the provision of financial assistance
The WGS-1 application and recording process was paper-based. Our records indicate that the file on the scheme was closed on 27th September 2001 and destroyed, we assume in accordance with the Forestry Commission’s record management policies, on 31st March 2010. We have searched our other records, including our database of grant payments, and we do not hold any further information beyond the existence of the grant application as noted above.

We therefore do not hold information on the amount of grant assistance provided or its purpose beyond it being under the Woodland Grant Scheme. Additional contract conditions will have expired when the contract ended and are unknown as the contract has been destroyed.
 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

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