Tar/asphalt sample test data taken on site location for seven A77 resurfacing projects: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/03229
Date received: 2 November 2018
Date responded: 29 November 2018

 

You asked for the following information: 

“The resurfacing projects that I am most interested in are as follows:

16/sw/0301/060 Auchairne Ballantrae.

14/sw/0101/002 South of Ardwell.

16/sw/0301/096 Ardwell.

17/sw/0103/005 Drumellan Farm.

16/sw/0301/005 Lendalfoot north gateway.

13/sw/0320/009 North Straid pass.

17/sw/0320/004 Kennedys pass.

"Item 1" of my request was to be supplied with a copy of the sample data taken on site relating to the resurfacing projects that I have listed above. Please can you now supply the tar/asphalt sample test data taken on site location for the above resurfacing projects.

To which you followed up your request with; 

‘Please can I further ask for details on the costing of the resurfacing projects that I have listed. 

Please can you indicate whether it was Transport Scotland OR TranServe that decided the area's to be resurfaced and which organisation costed the works’.

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.

Please refer the data supplied with this request on CD format which contains the asphalt laying records for each of the schemes listed. These include the temperature records that you were particuarly interested in as well as laboratory test reports for the bituminous analysis undertaken for some of the schemes.  An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. For this reason the personal details have been redacted.

Maintenance schemes are identified by our Operating Companies (in this case Scotland Transerv) following a formalised Annual Process, as set out within the Operating Company Contract. This provides a framework within which maintenance needs are identified by the Operating Company and schemes are developed within a Value Management process that applies suitably robust scrutiny to the design proposals. Cost estimates are developed by the OC during the scheme development phase and the works are re-measured in accordance with the Conditions of Contract. The actual cost of each of these schemes can be found at Annex A of this letter.