M73: winter maintenance plan with gritting priority programme: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01696
Date received: 19 June 2018
Date responded: 20 July 2018

Information requested

The following documents are requested covering the period 28th February 2018 to 28th March 2018 in terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002:

• A copy of the winter maintenance plan showing the general gritting priority programme;

• The gritting records in respect of the location referred to above

• Records of any weather forecasts in your hands for the period referred to above and;

• Details of all target and response times for winter treatment.

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.

As you may be aware, our operating company for this section of road is HMG who manage the M80 DBFO on behalf of Transport Scotland.

1. A copy of the 2017-2018 Winter Service Plan for the M80 DBFO can be found at the following link:

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/41432/m80-winter-service-plan-2017-18.pdf

2. A list of winter maintenance activities undertaken on routes including the M73 Link Road between 21/02/2018 and 07/03/2018 can be found at Annex A of this request.

3. 36-hour forecast data and updates we received between 21/02/2018 and 07/03/2018 can be found at Annex B of this request.

4. Details of all target and response times for winter treatments can be found in the Winter Service Plan. A link to this is below;

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/41432/m80-winter-service-plan-2017-18.pdf

An extract from the M80 DBFO contract which details response times is detailed below;

• 3.10.1 When an immediate response shall be required for snow and ice clearance, precautionary treatment or other de-icing Operations the Company shall mobilise and commence such snow and ice clearance precautionary treatment and other de-icing Operations within one hour of the Winter Service Duty Officer's decision.

• 3.10.2 When planned response shall be required for precautionary treatment and other de-icing Operations the Company shall mobilise and commence precautionary treatments to ensure completion before snow or ice conditions shall be predicted to occur as indicated by the expert weather forecasting service.

• 3.10.3 For immediate or planned responses the Company shall complete precautionary treatment routes within two hours from the commencement of precautionary treatment and other de-icing Operations.

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FOI-18-01696 - Annex A - information released (tabulated).pdf

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