Loch Ryan Sandwich Tern compensation site: EIR release

Information requested

I am writing to you to make a Freedom of Information request with regard to details of Equinor New Energy Ltd's proposal to install a Sandwich Tern compensation habitat on the West Coast of Loch Ryan near Kirkcolm, Dumfries and Galloway.

The proposal is part of compensation measures for the proposed extensions to Sheringham and Dudgeon wind farms in the North Sea, currently awaiting a decision by the UK Government.

I am seeking the following information with regard to this project:

All information Marine Scotland holds relating to the project, including emails, meeting minutes and notes, to and from Marine Scotland regarding this project. To include any advice Marine Scotland have given with regard to the project's legal policy protections and the practicalities of having compensation measures in Scotland for English wind farm extensions. 

All information and communication the Scottish Energy Consents Unit hold with regard to the Sandwich Tern compensation project at Loch Ryan, to include any details or advice given as to whether or not Compulsory Purchase Order powers would apply in this instance. 

I am looking specifically for information such as emails, meeting minutes and discussions on the Loch Ryan compensation project for Sandwich Terns. As much information as possible would be greatly appreciated.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) egulations 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.

I am releasing a copy of most of the information requested. There are 28 PDF items.

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 regulation 11(2) ‐ personal information of a third party, of the EIRs apply to that information.

Regulation 11(2) – To the extent that environmental information requested includes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject and in relation to which either the first or second condition set out in paragraphs (3) and (4) is satisfied, a Scottish public authority shall not make the personal data available.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information of a third party) 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 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.

Some of the information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non‐commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re‐use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Scottish Government will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for reusing Crown Copyright material on the National Archives website at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open‐governmentlicence/version/3/

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.