Treatment of potential oil spillage A84 at Kilmahog: EIR release

Information requested

“I’m looking to obtain some information on the treatment of a road following a potential oil spillage which took place on the evening of 13th August 2018. A84 at Kilmahog (near Callander) at between approximately 20:30 – 22:30hrs

• Were Bear Scotland called out with a spreader truck and sand to treat the road?
• At what time?
• Are there any comments/information confirming that oil was on the road?
• Was this called in by the police following an incident?
• Anything else of relevance to the incident.”

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 request, I can confirm that our Operating Company, Bear Scotland, was called out to a spillage at 21.35 on the evening of 13 August 2018, following a call from Police Scotland. The call log for this incident is at Annex A of this request. Bear Scotland arrived on the scene at 22:00 and a gritter spread one ton of sand on the road. There was a manned road closure while gritter carried out remedial action.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information provided in Annex A 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.

 

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.

foi-19-00893 Annexe A

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