· FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Catch statistics held for Loch Lomond/River Leven system: EIR release
Information requested
All catch statistics held for all areas of the Loch Lomond/ River Leven system. Particularly:
River Leven River Endrick River Fruin Clyde Estuary
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.
I have identified where possible the annual aggregated reported catches for areas within the Loch Lomond/River Leven system, along with catches from the Clyde Estuary, for seasons 1986 to 2017. I have also provided the 2011 to 2017 season catch information used for the Endrick Water conservation assessments.
Please note that the information held, and thus the information supplied here, is as reported and may be incomplete. Also, it has not been possible to provide reported catch data for the areas you have requested for seasons 1986 to 2015, as at least one of the forms returned is associated with more than one fishery and these fisheries are located in more than one of the areas you identified. For these forms, it is not possible to relate reported catches to specific fisheries and therefore specific areas.
The information has been supplied via two excel workbooks as follows:
1. FOI 18 01045_Reported Catches
Page 1: River Leven inc estuary
Page 2: Loch Lomond
Page 3: Fruin Water
Page 4: Luss Water
Page 5: River Falloch
Page 6: Endrick Water
Page 7: Clyde Estuary (Inner)
2. FOI 18 01045_Endrick Water_Assessment Data 2011-2017
Page 1: Endrick Water assessment Data
Detected exemption language
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.