A77 road maintenance at Maybole South Ayrshire: EIR release

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.


FOI reference: FOI/18/00730
Date received: 6 March 2018
Date responded: 6 April 2018

Information requested

I request information under the Freedom of Information Act relating to a road your authority is responsible for maintaining.

Specifically, my query relates to the A77 just outside the town of Maybole, South Ayrshire as per highlighted section below.

Please can you send me the following information:

1. A copy of your current road maintenance policy relating to that road. Please send me the full policy, but this should include details of the intended frequency of road safety inspections, how these inspections should be conducted and the maximum time between identification of a defect and repairs being carried out.

2. A copy of the road repair history for that road over the past year. Again, please send me the full road repair history, but this should include:

  • dates of all safety inspections between 1st November 2017 and 20th January 2018.

  • details of how safety inspections were undertaken (walked or driven, speed of inspection vehicle etc)

  • details of all carriageway defects identified, with description, date and time

  • details of how the authority handled these defects, what repairs were undertaken and the time between the identification of each defect and a repair being carried out."

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.

Response

1. Transport Scotland's approach to the maintenance of the trunk road network is set out in the 4th Generation Term Contract for management and maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network and our Road Asset Management Plan. Both documents are available online at the following links;

https://www.transport.gov.scoUmedia/35900/sw-combi.pdf

  • Schedule 7: Part 1 of the contract provides an overview of inspections.surveys and defect defect categories and response times.

  • Schedule 7: Part 2: Section 2.7 of the contract provides details of inspections and their frequency during winter.

  • Schedule 7: Part 6: Section 3 of the contract details the inspections and their frequency for Structures.

https://www.transport.gov.scoU publication/road-asset-management-plan-for-scottish-trunkĀ­roads-january-2016

2. Please refer to Annex A which is the inspection defect report for the A77 just outside of Maybole. This report includes the dates of inspections including safety patrols and details of defects.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses

FOI1800730 - Annex A.pdf

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference

Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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