Publication - FOI/EIR release

Wilton Hill Hawick, road maintenance, complaints and accidents: EIR release

Published: 10 July 2019
Topic: Public sector, Transport
FOI reference: FOI/19/01328
Date received: 27 June 2019
Date responded: 9 July 2019

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

We are making a request under the above act for information relating to Wilton Hill, Hawick, TD9 8BA.

In particular, we require the following information, including sight of any written or electronic communications, detailing:-

1. All maintenance and full service reports regarding the carriageway/footway at the above-described location;

2. All complaints made regarding the carriageway/footway at the above-described location;

3. All records of inspections and repairs regarding the carriageway/footway at the above-described location;

4. Notes of any accidents occurring at the above-described location;

5. The maintenance/repair policy relevant to the carriageway/footway at the above-described location; and

6. All correspondence/photographs in connection with the decision to re-tarmac the carriageway on or about 2016.

We would also request any photographs held relating to the information sought”.

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.

Response to your request

I have numbered our response for ease of reference;

1). Please refer to Annex A of this request which is the maintenance and full service reports regarding the carriageway/footway at the above-described location. In addition there has been a patching scheme on the A7 at Hawick Police Station and a scheme at Guthrie Drive.

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.

2. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we do not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies is that we do not hold that information as there were no complaints received.

3. Please refer to Annex B of this request which is all records of inspections and repairs regarding the carriageway/footway at the above described location.

4. Please refer to Annex C of this request which details any accidents occurring at the above described location.

5. All of the information you have requested is available from;

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/44436/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-scottish-trunk-road-network-january-2019.pdf

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. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

6. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we do not have the information you have requested in response to correspondence containing the decision to re-tarmac the carriageway on or about 2016.Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies is that we do not hold that information.

Please refer to Annex D which contains photographs in connection with the decision to re-tarmac the carriageway on or about 2016.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the photographs referred to above as Annex D.
If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.