Lane closures on the Queensferry Crossing: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/02008
Date received: 25 July 2018 
Date responded: 22 August 2018
 
Information requested

Information relating to the Queensferry Crossing.

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. As the exemption is conditional we have applied the ‘public interest test’. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information under FOISA 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.

Please provide a full list of every date on which there has been the closure of at least one lane on the Queensferry Crossing in the period from 30 August 2017 to the date on which you provide the FOI response.

In each individual case, please confirm:

• The time of the lane closure
• The number of lanes closed
• The reason for the lane closure
• Any payments made to the trunk road contractor or Queensferry crossing construction consortium related to the lane closure.

In relation to the 4th point above, please also confirm if these payments come out of the original Queensferry Crossing construction project budget or are in addition to this.

Please also confirm what the total rolling cost of the Queensferry Crossing construction project is at present, including all costs of roadworks and remedial work since the bridge was opened to the public.
Since opening to traffic in September 2017, the Queensferry Crossing has been open each day, with the exception of Thursday 30 November 2017 to 6 December 2017 when defects identified to the surfacing adjacent to the expansion joints of the Queensferry Crossing meant that some snagging works were necessary prior to increasing the speed limit to 70mph. The Queensferry Crossing remained open during these works and traffic southbound was diverted over the Forth Road Bridge.

With regards to your specific requests, for ease of reference, I have split your requests into individual requests.

1. Your request for a full list of every date on which there has been the closure of at least one lane on the Queensferry Crossing in the period from 30 August 2017 to date, including the time of the lane closure, the number of lanes closed and the reason for the lane closure.

A full list of all closures on the Queensferry Crossing from 30 August 2017 to date, including the time of the lane closure and the reason for the lane closure is enclosed as an attachment with this response. When overnight closures have been required for the purposes of undertaking works on the Queensferry Crossing, one lane in each direction has been available for traffic.

2. Your request for details of any payments made to the trunk road contractor or Queensferry crossing construction consortium related to the lane closure.

The Scottish Government has not made any payments related to lane closures to either FCBC, the Queensferry Crossing contractor or the trunk road operating company.

3. Your request for confirmation of what the total rolling cost of the Queensferry Crossing construction project is at present,
The rolling costs for the total Forth Replacement Crossing Project is as follows:

Year

to 2011	£80 million
2011 – 12	£152 million
2012 – 13	£242 million
2013 – 14	£193 million
2014 – 15	£232 million
2015 – 16	£217 million
2016 – 17	£114 million
2017 – 18	£87 million

4. Your request for all costs of roadworks and remedial work since the bridge was opened to the public.

No additional costs have accrued to the Scottish Government for remedial works. All cost related to remedial works is borne by FCBC, the project contractor, and we do not have access to these costs. Consequently, I am informing you that this information is not held by the Scottish Government. For that reason we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.

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. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open and transparent government, and to help account for the expenditure of public money. However, there is a greater public interest in protecting the commercial interests of companies which enter into Scottish Government contracts, to ensure that we are always able to obtain the best value for public money.

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FOI-18-02008 - information released (tabulated)

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Excel document

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21.6 kB