A737 Dalry Bypass: cost-benefit assessment: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/02139
Date received: 8 August2018 
Date responded: 5 September 2018
 
Information requested

‘Cost-benefit assessment and analysis for bypass on A737 around Dalry for years 2025 and year 2029 under the Freedom of Information Act.
Will you also advise the estimated cost of the original project and the current estimated final cost. Will you name the contractors and their estimated costs’.

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.

In response to your first request while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have.
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. While we recognise there may be some public interest in the cost-benefit assessment and analysis for the A737 Dalry Bypass clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.
To answer the second part of your request, the original estimate was £53 million inclusive of VAT (2012 prices). The current estimated final cost of the project is £57.9 million inclusive of VAT. The Contractor for this project is Farrans Roadbridge Joint Venture and we do not hold information on the contractors estimated costs. Therefore we are refusing part of your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have.
This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in the contractors estimated costs, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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