Changes to Police Scotland Planned Shoots

Nature Scot has informed us that they will soon write to all current 18(2) Night Shooting authorisation holders about recent changes Police Scotland has made to how prior notification for night shooting activity is registered.

As a reminder, the authorised person must inform the local police, neighbours, and anyone who, to the best of their knowledge, is likely to be on the property/control area at the times night shooting will take place.

Effective immediately:

Night shooting notifications must now be sent to a new, dedicated mailbox. All 18(2) Night Shooting notifications should be detailed on the ‘Authorised Shoot – Pest Control’ form and sent to: Plannedshoot@scotland.police.uk

See the ‘Notification of Authorised Shoot – Pest Control’ form on the Police Scotland website https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/what-we-do/firearms-and-explosives-licensing/. The form is at the bottom of the page.

Authorised persons should no longer use the ‘Contact Us’ online form on the Police Scotland website, email contactus@scotland.police.uk, or call 101 to obtain an incident report number.

Notifications sent to the new mailbox will not result in an incident report number. Authorised persons, when emailing their form to the Planned Shoot inbox, should keep a copy of the email in their sent items for any future reference as required.

Police Scotland no longer needs to be notified when any night shooting activity has concluded.

This is simply best practice and should minimise the demands on both the certificate holder and the police.  It will remove the need to dial 101 and endure the long wait.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to phone the office and ask.