LED street lights, installation, failures and complaints: EIR release

Information requested

 

1.      I would like to know how many LED street lights have fell off the light pole since January 2018.

2.      I would like to know how many LED street lights have failed since January 2018.

3.      I would also like to know how many complaints that Transport Scotland has received about LED street lights since January 2018.

4.      I would also like to know when Transport Scotland started installing LED street lights on the A9, A82 and A96 in Inverness.

5.      I would also like to know when (what month and year) Transport Scotland decided to install LED street lights.
 

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.

I have numbered our response for ease of reference.

 

1.  No LED street lights have fallen from the light poles since January 2018.

 

2.  A total of 86 LED lights have failed since January 2018.

 

3.  Most of the information you have requested is available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-03779/ .

This was also issued to you via letter on 10 January 2019. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. 

We can however, provide information from 26 November 2018 to 5 January 2019. From 26 November there has been a total of 5 complaints received.

 

4.  Transport Scotland started to install LED street lights on the A9, A82 and A96 in Inverness in 2014.

 

5.  Transport Scotland decided to install LED street lights in March 2014.

 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.