Eskdalemuir Seismic Array zone renewable development correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

1. Any correspondence between the Scottish Government and the Ministry of Defence about renewable developments including solar and wind farms within the Eskdalemuir Seismic Array zone over the past three years (since 2020) including any conversations about the MoD’s noise calculating budget for the area.

2. Any correspondence between the Scottish Government and Michael Polsky and/or his company Invenergy regarding windfarm development in the Eskdalemuir Seismic Array zone since 2020.

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.

In response to point 1 of your request:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide the information you have requested because an exception under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) regulations 10(4)(b) applies to that information. This is because in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would be considered as ‘manifestly unreasonable’.

Your request resulted in hundreds of search results which would take a significant amount of time to review and, where necessary, redact. Therefore, point 1 of your request, as it is currently worded, would pose too much of a significant burden on the public authority.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

In response to point 2 of your request:

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 regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs applies to that information, and;
• An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information.

Regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs applies to material which is still in the course of completion, unfinished documents or incomplete data. This exception applies because the scoping opinion is still in the course of completion. 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 information regarding the consultation responses in question, the scoping opinion and associated consultation responses will be published later this year.

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

Please find Annex A attached with the information that we are able to provide in response to this request.

For more information regarding specific wind farm developments please access the ECU Portal by carrying out an ‘advanced search’ Scottish Government - Energy Consents Unit - Application Search. We regularly publish documents which relate to wind farm applications such as application documents and consultation responses.

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.

FOI 202400435349 - Information Released - Annex A

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