1994 A77 Route Action Plan between Ayr and Stranraer: FOI release

Information requested

1. I request the full content, in electronic format, of the 1994 A77 Route Action Plan between Ayr and Stranraer.

2. If the full RAP cannot be provided, then at minimum I request specifically:

a) what improvement measures were recommended

b) what improvement measures were progressed, and for each of these:

• the dates of commissioning and completion
• the cost
• the name of the company and/or companies carrying out all work and/or studies

c) what improvement measures were not progressed, and for each of these:

• when the decision was made not to progress
• who made the decision not to progress

d) who commissioned the report

e) who carried out the study

f) justification beyond Sarah Boyack’s 2001 response as to why the full report cannot be released now, a quarter century after it was undertaken.

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 June 1994 the Scottish Office invited Strathclyde Regional Council, together with Dumfries and Galloway Regional Council to prepare a route action plan for the A77 Ayr to Stranraer Trunk Road. As a consequence of Local Government (Scotland) Reorganisation in April 1996, South Ayrshire Council assumed responsibility for the study with input from Dumfries and Galloway Council. The draft Route Action Plan Firm Strategy Report for the A77: Ayr to Stranraer was presented to the Scottish Office in October 1997. The report details the work undertaken from 1994 however a final version of the RAP was never prepared. Please find enclosed an electronic copy of the draft A77: Ayr to Stranraer Route Action Plan Firm Strategy Report dated October 1997.

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 the cover sheet of the attached report, and two letters on pages 174 and 176.

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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/20/00012 - Information Released

File type

198 page PDF

File size

7.8 MB