A75 – 200m either side from junction at Drumeower questions: EIR release

Information requested

A75 – 200m either side from junction at Drumeower.

I refer to your letter, dated 8th July, 2019. I have amended my original request and have reduced the area of road that I would like you provide information regarding and as you requested, I have also reduced the date range. I would be grateful if you please provide the following information; 

1. Dates of all safety inspections undertaken on the carriageway since May 2018.
2. Details of all carriageway defects identified during safety inspections since May 2018.
3. Details of how carriageway safety inspections are undertaken, including whether walked or driven, the speed of the inspection vehicle and the number of person in the vehicle.
4. The intended frequency of carriageway safety inspections.
5. Details of all complaints and/or enquiries relating to the carriageway, received since Mat 2018.
6. The Hierarchy classification
7. The road/section number
8. The defect intervention criteria adopted in relation to the identification of all catergories or carriageway potholes.
9. The time period(s) adopted between identification and repair (temporary and permanent) of all categories of carriageway defects
10. Whether or not Dumfires and Galloway Council or Scotland Transerv have formally adopted all or part of the standards contained within the national code of practice for highways maintenance management.

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.

Whilst checking the location with our operating company, Scotland Transerv, we discovered that this location is incorrectly named Drumeower on Google Maps. This location is called Drumflower and is displayed on the following information contained within Annex A and B. 

I have numbered our response for ease of reference. 

1, 2 and 7. Please refer to Annex A of this request which is the inspection defect report. This contains dates of all safety inspections undertaken on the carriageway since May 2018, details of all carriageway defects identified during safety inspections since May 2018 and contains the road section numbers. 

3, 4  and 9. 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.  

5. Please refer to Annex B of this request which contains the details of all complaints and/or enquiries relating to the carriageway, received since May 2018. 

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.

6. The hierarchy number of the road is 66 with a hierarchy score of 5.

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

https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-19-00624/

10. The Scottish Ministers Requirements set out in the 4th Generation Term Contracts are a bespoke set of requirements specific to the management and maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network. The requirements meet or exceed the standards set out in the national codes of practice. The 4th Generation Term Contract for management and maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network can be viewed with the following web link:

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35900/sw-combi.pdf 

Our 4G contract and Road Asset Management Plan sets out Transport Scotland’s approach to the maintenance of the trunk road network. The Road Asset Management Plan is available online at;

https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/road-asset-management-plan-for-scottish-trunk-roads-january-2016

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FOI-19-01823 - Annex A - Inspection

File type

5 page PDF

File size

54.2 kB

FOI-19-01823 - Annex B - Complaints

File type

3 page PDF

File size

479.8 kB