Dredging licence granted to Moray Council: EIR release

Information requested

Please provide me with a breakdown of the dredging licenses granted to The Moray Council in respect of dredging their six harbours.

It would be helpful if the dates, volumes and cost could be provided for the individual harbours. i.e. Buckie, Burghead, Cullen, Findochty, Hopeman and Portknockie.

If possible could this information be provided for the last 15 years.

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.

Please find below details of dredging operations for the 6 harbours referred to in the request above. Harbour maintenance dredging carried out by a Statutory Harbour Authority can be exempted from the requirement of a marine licence under article 26 of The Marine Licensing (Exempted Activities) (Scottish Inshore Region) Order 2011. Moray Council is the Statutory Harbour Authority for these harbours and most of the dredging carried out was maintenance dredging and therefore exempt from the requirement of a dredging licence.

Marine Scotland does not hold information of the cost of dredging activities undertaken.

Table 1 Details of dredging licence granted to Moray Council

Licence reference number	Location	Licence start date	Licence end date	Volume dredged
05263/16/0	Burghead	15/04/2016	22/09/2017	30,800 tonnes / 22,000 m3 per year. Supersedes licence 05263/14/0
05263/14/0	Burghead	01/09/2014	31/08/2017	30,800 tonnes / 22,000 m3 per year
05948	Hopeman	06/10/2016	05/10/2019	600 tonnes/ 500 m³ per year
04988	Hopeman	01/03/2014	28/02/2015	100 m³
05262/16/0	Buckie	15/04/2016	22/09/2017	18,667 tonnes / 12,333m3 per year. Supersedes licence 05262/14/0
05262/14/0	Buckie	01/09/2014	31/08/2017	18,667 tonnes / 12,333 m3 per year.
05949	Findochty	06/10/2016	05/10/2019	3480 tonnes/ 2900m³ per year
05947	Portknockie	06/10/2016	05/10/2019	1200 tonnes/ 1000m³ per year
05946	Cullen	06/10/2016	05/10/2019	1200 tonnes/ 1000m³ per year

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 regulations 10(4) (a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why this exception applies is explained in the Annex.

Since the middle of 2018 all marine licence applications and licences issued have been published on our website. Please find a link Search | Marine Scotland Information where you are able to view recent information on marine licences granted.

ANNEX
REASON FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exception applies:
Regulation 10(4)(a) – A Scottish public authority may refuse to make environmental information available to the extent that (a) it does not hold that information when an applicant’s request is received.

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. The Scottish Government does not have the information you requested with regard to costs of activity.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in dredging information, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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.