Flood Prevention Schemes submitted for approval: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01040
Date received: 3 April 2018
Date responded: 19 April 2018

Information requested

'Please provide information on how many Flood Prevention Schemes have been submitted to you for approval since the enactment of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009, where it is the Local Authorities intention to implement the scheme through private land holdings without consent and there are unresolved objections.'

'Provide information on the number of schemes which were given a Ministerial Call In and provide the number of schemes which were permitted to be heard through a Local Authority Hearing since the enactment.'

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.

The answer to your question is:

Under paragraph 5(5) of schedule 2 of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 ("the Act") when a local authority makes a preliminary decision in relation to a flood protection scheme it must give notice to Scottish Ministers of its decision if there are any unresolved objections from either a person having an interest in any land on which the proposed operations are to be carried out or whose interest in any other land may be affected by any of the operations or by any alteration in the flow of water caused by any of the operations.

Since commencement of the Act Scottish Ministers have been notified of four schemes under paragraph 5(5) of schedule 2 of the Act.

Of the four schemes Ministers have called in one for their consideration and this will be subject to a Public Local Inquiry. The other three schemes were referred back to the local authority to hold a hearing as required by paragraph 8(2) of schedule 2 of the Act.

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