Our ref F0186784

If telephoning ask for: Michael Hampton

15 November 2016 Dear Ms Kelly

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION - FEES NOTICE

We write with regard to your request received by SEPA on 22 October 2016, in which you asked for the following information:

Please supply any and all memos, reports, data, email from August 2015 to the present date which deal with the air quality in City Centre, including . This should include but is not limited to any documents which log and/or express any concerns expressed over the level and types of pollution in the area such as particulates, and chemicals produced from the burning of marine diesel, and other types of fuel.

We requested the following clarification on the 04 November 2016:

We advise we require clarification on the area you consider to be Aberdeen city centre. The attached plan was located on Aberdeen City Council's website and defined the area known to be the city centre of Aberdeen. This does not class Torry being in the city centre.

Please note there are no authorised PPC sites within the area marked in the attached plan.

Please clarify the areas of interest in relation to your request by either confirming you are content with the area detailed in the attached plan or by submitting a plan to highlight what areas you consider to fall within scope of your request. Alternatively, please advise if you require information on air quality in relation to specific sites close to the city centre such as the Aberdeen Energy from Waste Plant, National Oilwell Varco UK Limited - PPC/A/1000166, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, - PPC/A/1117278 or United Fish Products, East Tullos - PPC/N/0020022.

Please contact us should you wish to discuss this request further with our operations team for further advice on the type of information held in relation to air quality.

We received a response on 05 November 2016, in which you provided the following clarification:

Here is a map from Aberdeen City Council's city centre masterplan defining what is meant by the city and by me when I say city centre. http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=63662&sID=25779 I also asked that you include Torry - but as you have asked for clarification, and as the time line I gave you is a fairly small one, please now include Tullos and . I trust this sufficiently clarifies.

We have applied the exemption under Section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 as we have determined that the information sought in your request is environmental information. We are therefore handling your request under the terms of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs). In this case the public interest in maintaining this exemption and in dealing with the request in line with the requirements of the EIRs outweighs any public interest in disclosing the information under FOISA.

Terms of Request We have understood your request to be for any information held by SEPA connected to air quality in Aberdeen City Centre, Torry, Tullos and Altens since August 2015. We have understood Torry, Tullos and Altens to cover the land south of the River Dee within the area on the coastal side of the A956 down to Langdykes Road. Please clarify further if we have misunderstood the area of interest.

Projected Fee We have scoped your request and have identified that information is held by numerous teams within the organisation in a variety of SEPA records and systems.

We estimate that it will take a considerable amount of time to locate and retrieve all information in relation to air quality within the requested area. To locate this information, we will be required to conduct searches through the project and site files (electronic and paper copies) for each site as well as conducting searches in various SEPA databases for complaints, inspection reports and data submissions from the operator.

Please refer to annex 1 for a breakdown on the different types of information within scope where relevant information is potentially held by SEPA. This also details the amount of time we have calculated that it would take for SEPA staff to locate and retrieve the relevant information.

Please note should the full fee be paid, due to the amount of work involved to locate and retrieve information, we will need additional time to respond to your query fully. Therefore under regulation 7 of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 we are permitted to take up to 40 working days to respond to voluminous and complex queries. 7(1) The period of 20 working days referred to in- (a) regulation 5(2)(a); (b) regulation 6(2)(a); and (c) regulation 13(a), may be extended by a Scottish public authority by a further period of up to 20 working days if the volume and complexity of the information requested makes it impracticable for the authority either to comply with the request within the earlier period or to make a decision to refuse to do so.

(2) Where paragraph (1) applies the Scottish public authority shall notify the applicant accordingly as soon as possible and in any event no later than 20 working days after the date of receipt of the request for the information.

(3) Notification under paragraph (2) shall- (a) be in writing; (b) give the authority's reasons for considering the information to be voluminous and complex; and (c) inform the applicant of the review provisions under regulation 16 and of the enforcement and appeal provisions available in accordance with regulation 17.

Regulation 8 of the EIRs permits SEPA to charge a ‘reasonable amount’ for accessing environmental information;  We charge for staff time to locate and / or retrieve the requested information, redaction, the cost of supplying the information e.g. photocopying and postage.  We do not charge for the time spent in determining whether the information is held or if the information is subject to one or more if the exceptions.  Our charging schedule can be viewed at http://www.sepa.org.uk/about-us/access-to-information/  Please note that there is no charge for the first seven hours of staff time spent on locating and retrieving the requested information.

The estimated cost to locate and retrieve this information is £1004. Details on the calculation can be found in the table below.

Amount Staff time to locate and retrieve £25 per hour with 47.16 hours required to locate and £1179 retrieve relevant information

Less 7 hours free time -£175 Total £1004

Please contact us should you wish to use a different method of payment. Should we subsequently find that the actual cost in providing the requested information is less than anticipated in this fees notice we will refund any overpayment to you.

This means that we will have up to an extra 20 working days in addition to the initial period that commenced on the date we received your original request. On receipt of payment, you will receive a response from us no later than 33 working days.

Alternatively should you wish to define your request more narrowly, we may be able to reduce the amount of work required and the resultant fees. Please contact the Access to Information Team accordingly at [email protected]

Methods of Payment To make payment please send a cheque, made payable to SEPA, to;

The Access to Information Team SEPA Strathallan House Stirling FK9 4TZ

Your unique reference number is F0186784. Please quote this in any future contact with us about your request.

Advice and Assistance Please note the applications for all PPC permits contain air quality information and are currently available and easily accessible from SEPA’s public register. These applications contain information concerning air quality impact and may have air emission reports. Please contact our registry team at [email protected] should you require application details regarding specific permits.

We advise information connected to the Aberdeen City Planning references 151587 and 160276 will be contained within the request for F0186782. The time to locate and retrieve information will still stand if you require us to locate and retrieve information specifically related to air quality.

Please also note raw air quality data is available on the Scottish Government Air Quality webpage via the links below. http://www.scottishairquality.co.uk/news/reports?view=laqm http://www.scottishairquality.co.uk/data/

We advise you to contact our South Grampian operations team in our Aberdeen office to discuss your request further for further advice on the type of relevant information held by SEPA in relation to air quality. http://www.sepa.org.uk/contact/office-locations/sepa-offices/aberdeen/

Review Procedure If, however, you have any issues regarding the decision to issue this fees notice or our decision to extend the time period, to respond, you have up until 17 January 2017 to request a review from SEPA.

If you are still not satisfied, you can appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner; www.itspublicknowledge.info/appeal

Please note that you have 60 days to respond to this letter. If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you have withdrawn your request.

If you have any queries in the meantime, please contact me.

Yours faithfully

M Hampton

Michael Hampton Access to Information Co-ordinator

Annex 1 Reference / Site / Description Time Type Required PPC/A/1015769 Taylors Industrial Services, Hareness Circle, Altens Industrial 1 hour Estate Aberdeen PPC/A/1016777 Enviroco, Torry Marine Base, Sinclair Road Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/A/1016775 Enviroco, Hillview WTS, Tullos, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/A/1019575 Enviroco, Maitland Quay, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/A/1038071 Scomi, Pocra Quay, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/A/1015769 Taylors Industrial Services, Mearns Quay, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/A/1107786 Enviroco, Albert Quay, Aberdeen 30 mins WML/L/1117082 Scotoil, Miller Street, Aberdeen 30 mins WML/N/0020014 Sita UK, East Tullos Waste Transfer station, Aberdeen 1 hour WML/N/0020016 Sita UK, Ness Farm Landfill Site, Aberdeen 2 hours WML/N/0020154 John Lawrie (Aberdeen) Limited, Scrap metal yard, Aberdeen 30 mins WML/N/0020018 Biffa Waste Management Services, Greenbank Road Tullos, 30 mins Aberdeen WML/N/0020158 Shanks Base 3, Greenbank Road, Tullos, Aberdeen 30 mins WML/N/0020217 Kelda Water, Nigg WWTW, Aberdeen 4 hours WML/N/0220004 Shanks Base 2, Greenbank Road, Tullos, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/B/1004345 Halliburton Manufacturing Services, Waterloo Quay, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/B/1008972 Enviroco, Torry Marine Base, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/B/1088235 Scotoil, Miller Street, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/N/0030099 MI Swaco, Greenbank Crescent, Tullos, Aberdeen. 30 mins PPC/N/0030101 Specialist Cars, Greenwell Road, Tullos, Aberdeen 30 mins PPC/N/0020022 United Fish Industries, East Tullos Plant, Aberdeen 2 hours PPC/B/1016408 BP Oil UK Ltd., Esplanade PFS 5 mins PPC/B/1015511 WM Morrisons, 130 West North Street,Aberdeen 5 mins PPC/B/1015508 Shell Wellington, Aberdeen 5 mins PPC/B/1015051 Shell Redmoss, Aberdeen 5 mins PPC/B/1012896 Johnson Cleaners UK Limited, Union St, Aberdeen 20 mins PPC/B/1012900 Johnson Cleaners UK Limited, Rd, Aberdeen 20 mins PPC/B/1014427 Timpson Ltd, King St, Aberdeen 20 mins PPC/B/1150871 Rosemount Dry Cleaners 20 mins 151587 and Energy from Waste Facility, Torry, Aberdeen including Council and 9 hours 160276 Stakeholder Meetings, information connected to planning. Information in Planning Database. Planning 114 Planning Consultations in requested area may have air 7 hours Consultations quality impact Aberdeen Air National Modelling Framework - Aberdeen being used as a trial 2 hours Quality model city to develop methodology currently in draft format pilot project Scottish National Strategy information that may refer to Air Quality in 7 hours Governments Aberdeen (CAFS) strategy Aberdeen Air Aberdeen City Council Raw Traffic Air Quality Data 1 hour Quality data Local Air Quality Correspondence with Local Authority, Scottish Government or 1.5 hours Management potentially others interest groups - general information information

What to expect when making a Request for Information

Each request for information, under either The Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 or the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, is formally logged by the authority. The request falls within a process that has two internal stages carried out by the authority; a right of appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner followed by an appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only.  Stage 1 – Request for information  Stage 2 – Formal Review  Stage 3 – Appeal for decision by Scottish Information Commissioner (OSIC)  Stage 4 – Appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only. Each enquiry will have a unique Reference Number which should be quoted when you contact us.

How you will be kept informed

You will receive an acknowledgement for your request and Formal Review. We aim to reply to all enquiries promptly, within 20 working days. You will receive a response along with the requested information and/or an explanation regarding any withheld information. We may also contact you if we require clarification or if we are issuing a fees notice.

What happens once your enquiry has been responded to?

If you are not happy with the response or have failed to receive a response, you have the right to request a Formal Review from SEPA.

We will ensure that all personal data is processed, recorded and retained in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 throughout the handling of each request. You have a right to see information about yourself via submitting a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act 1998.

What to do if you are not happy with how your enquiry and review were handled

If you are unsatisfied with our Formal Review response or have failed to receive a response, you can then appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner via the links below. www.itspublicknowledge.info/appeal http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/home/ContactUs/ContactUs.aspx

Should you wish to appeal against the Scottish Information Commissioner’s decision, you have the right to appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only. Any such appeal must be made within 42 days after the date of intimation of the decision.