Land adjacent Swallow Roundabout, Dundee and Dykes of Gray development correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for – “All and any correspondence, including all and any documents, notes, daybooks, diary entries, minutes and emails whether held electronically or otherwise relating to or in respect of the land adjacent to Swallow Roundabout, Dundee  (including all and any such correspondence relating to the potential compulsory purchase of such land) among and  between Transport Scotland, and in particular Dundee City Council, the Council’s Roads Department, the Council’s Planning Department and Springfield Homes and  all and any of their respective,  officials, officers, councillors, directors  and agents  and also  any other third party developer who previously expressed an interest in developing the land now benefiting from the said permissions.”

On 13 February you clarified and asked an additional 2 questions –

“• any correspondence or meeting notes regarding discussions to increase the number of units permitted at the Dykes of Gray development prior to the completion of the upgrade of the Swallow Roundabout. The development is also called the Western Gateway.

• detailed terms agreed by Transport Scotland and Springfield Homes relating to the conditions attached to the Dykes of Gray/ Western Gateway planning permissions. The planning conditions are:-

 “6. Development shall not commence until an appropriate mechanism for the upgrading of the A90 Swallow Roundabout, generally as illustrated on Arup Drawing 233958-00 Figure 1, has been submitted to and agreed in writing by the Planning Authority in consultation with Transport Scotland. The works shall thereafter be implemented in full accordance with the agreed details.

7. Prior to the commencement of development on site, full details including the timescales for implementation of the proposed improvements and findings set out in the approved Transport Assessment (REP/001 Rev A 1 October 2014) shall be agreed in writing with the Council and thereafter implemented in full accordance with the agreed details.”

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.

Please see Annex A to this response which is correspondence relating to or in respect of the land adjacent to Swallow Roundabout, Dundee.

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 is because it is personal data of a third party.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs (unfinished or incomplete information) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is material which is still in the course of completion/ an unfinished document/ incomplete data. These are documents which are in draft stage.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that unfinished or incomplete information is not disclosed when it might misinform the public or give a misleading impression of Transport Scotland’s view or position on the matter to which the information relates.

Please see Annex B to this response which is correspondence regarding discussions to increase the number of units permitted at the Dykes of Gray development.  This includes details of the terms agreed in connection with condition 6.

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 is because it is personal data of a third party.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we do not have some of the information you have requested.  Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.  This is because we hold no documentation relating to condition 7.

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/19/02655 - Annex A

File type

56 page PDF

File size

2.9 MB

FOI/19/02655 - Annex B

File type

19 page PDF

File size

1.3 MB