Transport Scotland - A702/A703 Hillend study: EIR release

Information requested

You asked

“I'm e-mailing regarding the A702/A703 Hillend Junction just outside Edinburgh.

It was reported recently in the press that Transport Scotland commissioned a study into safety improvements to be made to this junction after over 5000 conflicts within four days.

I'd appreciate it if Transport Scotland would publish this report in full.

Also, could you provide information on how active travel transport methods were considered in this study and how the recommended options for improvements would accommodate pedestrians and cyclists safely."

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.

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.

Please see Annex A to this response, A702/A703 Hillend Conflict Study.

The purpose of the report was to analyse the reported personal injury accidents and conflicts identified. None of the injury accidents involved pedestrians or cyclists and there was no evidence of any conflicts involving pedestrians or cyclists during the study period.

The report has identified a number of options to address the recorded accidents and conflicts. As the A703 and Old Pentland Road are the responsibility of Midlothian Council, it will be necessary to agree any future intervention at this junction with them. Should it be possible to incorporate enhanced facilities for pedestrians and cyclists then this will be taken forward as part of the design process.

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/20/00076 - Annex A - A702/A703 Hillend Junction Study

File type

83 page PDF

File size

5.8 MB