A96 Dualling – East of Huntly to Aberdeen - use by agricultural vehicles: EIR release

Information requested

“…please could you supply me with all and any communications of any kind including but not limited to email, letters, reports, etc., between Transport Scotland, their contractors and subcontractors and Aberdeenshire Council from August 2018 to November 2019 regarding agricultural vehicles using the proposed new A96 dual carriageway from Inverness to Aberdeen, with specific reference to the East of Huntly to Aberdeen section.”

Response

As all of 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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception(s) under regulation(s) 11(2) of the EIRs applies to that information.
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. This exception has been applied to Annex A contained within this response.

Please find enclosed the following information regarding communications with Aberdeenshire Council from August 2018 to November 2019 relating to agricultural vehicles using the proposed new dual carriageway:
Annex A: Meeting Notes – Extract in relation to agricultural vehicles using the proposed new dual carriageway.

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FOI-19-02519 Information released

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