freedom of information?

those that know me will have been sick of the death of me dribbling on about the carron valley trails project over the past few years.

without going into the full details, when we opened the £100k of mtb trails (that a voluntary group that had masterminded and raised funds for) in early 2006, we had hoped that the then minister for sport would perform the opening ceremony. the event was due on a monday and until late on the friday afternoon the minister was still coming (and her staff were talking to members of the group about arrangements). late on the friday, it would appear that some terrifying information about the event or project was passed to the minister by forestry commission scotland (those great friends of mtbing) and she cancelled. the local MSP, cathie craigie, who has been a great supporter of the project (and who had invited the minister for sport on our behalf) stepped in and performed the "unofficial opening" (sic) ceremony.

when the project went tits up last summer, thanks to the devious behavour of forestry commission scotland, i decided to request the advice given to the minister for sport to see what had caused her to cancel an official engagement with only a couple of (working) hours notice.

the request has dragged on for months (both the scottish government and forestry commission scotland have attempted to suppress the information and an appeal is currently with the scottish information commissioner. although i have stepped down from my position with CVDG, i want to pursue this matter through to it's natural conclusion.

imagine my surprise when i received a letter from the scottish government yesterday with some of the email correspondence that i'd requested - one of the four emails that the scottish government confirmed exists on the subject. make sure to read the letter first...





this fucking stinks. what are they hiding?