Strath Halladale Partnership licence request to catch salmon: EIR release

Information requested

If the Strath Halladale Partnership or anyone in their employment have applied for a licence to catch salmon out of season and to run a hatchery in 2024/25.

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 yes. An application was received by Marine Directorate on 13 September 2024 on behalf of the Strath Halladale Partnership to catch salmon out of season with progeny to be stocked from the Tigh na Breac hatchery in 2025.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that a licence to fish at otherwise illegal times was issued on 17 October 2024. The Northern DSFB is the authority for associated stocking.

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.