Management and maintance of the A828: EIR release

“I would like to know - under FOI - how , in this case BEAR Scotland allocates expenditure on the A828.  

The reason I ask it that resurfacing and barriers are goingvon in the Argyll and Bute part of the A838, whilst the Highland part of the A828 is left alone (even though BEAR have acknowledged that repair work has been outstanding for a few years).

I woukd like to know if there is an algorithm for allocating over council regions”.

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, Bear Scotland undertakes the day to day maintenance of the trunk road network on behalf of Transport Scotland under the 4th Generation Contract for the Management and Maintenance of the Trunk Road Network which includes the management and maintance of the A828. The link to this contract can be found below;

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35899/nw-combi.pdf 

Bear Scotland identifies and prioritises work based on a number of factors including structural condition, functional condition and road safety by means of a weekly inspection cycle. Details of these inspections can be found in the link above. 

• Schedule 7: Part 1 of the contract provides an overview of inspections, surveys and 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.

The A838 is not the responsibility of Transport Scotland. This is a local authority road. Local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities and are entirely separate from the Scottish Government.  It is up to each local authority how it manages its day-to-day business and decision making processes and this includes decisions for the provision of street lighting and roads maintenance. You may wish to contact the local authority at; foi@highland.gov.uk