the poor dears

Carron Valley Development Group
Forestry Commission Scotland
Carron Valley Development Group
Forestry Commission Scotland
Carron Valley Development Group
Forestry Commission Scotland

Well hello there friends. I'm glad you could join us. A particularly warm welcome to those reading at Silvan House (or is it Inverness)?

It would appear that some of the images linked from in this post caused a little upset to Forestry Commission Scotland. So much so that someone went crying to teacher (see point 32) and used it as an example of why Forestry Commission Scotland were correct in refusing CVDG access to information requested in the summer of 2007.

To fill you in on the background - a number of information requests were made following the Mysterious Case of the Project Initiation Document (which aimed to put the plans of the Carron Valley Partnership to Forestry Enterprise Scotland's board for approval). As CVDG was a group of volunteers with day jobs, the requests were split between members of the group to ensure that no individual member was lumbered [sorry] with all of the work.

All of these requests were knocked back by Forestry Commission Scotland as vexatious or persistent under section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act. Members of the group then set about the long process of appealing this decision to the relevant bodies. Additionally, a request that I made directly to the Scottish Government was apparently passed to Forestry Commission Scotland, although was then passed back to the Scottish Government for them to knock back.

Embarrassingly for Forestry Commission Scotland (and the Scottish Government), all of the cases that were referred to the Scottish Information Commissioner or the Information Commissioners Office found in favours of members of CVDG.

I like to think of Hell-on-Wheels as a friendly talking shop, so if anyone from Forestry Commission Scotland happens to be reading and would like to comment then feel free to use the facilities provided using the comment page . If you're shy and would like to raise a point / apologise in private then please get in touch by email*.

* although I'll post anything funny here...