Scottish Forestry screening opinions issued under EIA Regulations 2017: EIR release

Information requested

I note the above FOI response from SF (Ref: 202300387055). I am writing to ask why this list is incomplete? New Woodland Creation Schemes have not all been included. For example the scheme at Rhu & Shandon, Perth and Argyll Conservancy, on Letrault and Stuckenduff Farms do not appear on your list. These were screened for EIA and determined no consent required.

I would be grateful if you could check and let me know as to why this NWC does not appear within your FOI response.

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 information that was supplied in response to request 202300387055 did not contain details of the screening decision for Rhu & Shandon as the screening process for this site was in 2 parts. At the time of the request, only one was approved, the other part pertaining to the road was not. Therefore the full screening decision was incomplete at the time of the request, and did not appear on the list provided.

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.