Publication - FOI/EIR release

Motorist claims & outcomes of vehicle damage sustained from A725 potholes: EIR release

Published: 19 March 2020
Topic: Public sector, Transport
FOI reference: FOI/202000018645
Date received: 2 March 2020
Date responded: 18 March 2020

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004

Information requested

Claims submitted for road defects along the A725 to maintainers Scotland Transerv, particularly from the Wraith interchange join, along with their outcome."
Further clarification confirmed that you were "looking for claims and their outcomes made by motorists for vehicle damage caused by potholes across roads maintained by Scotland Transerv. An ideal range would be from the opening of the Raith Interchange in February 2017 until now. Similarly, could I extend this request to include all pothole reports on the A725, along with their time to repair, across the same date range?"

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 relation to claims as a result of potholes, we do not have the information you have requested.
Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reason why that exception applies is that our Operating Companies and DBFO Consessionaries indemnify Scottish Ministers in relation to claims, therefore we have no involvement in this process and do not hold the information requested.
Scottish Roads Partnership (SRP), on behalf of Transport Scotland, is responsible for the A725 trunk road between the junction with Kirkshaws Road/Hagmill Road near Coatbridge in the North and to a point north of the River Clyde overbridge, near Raith junction in the South. The information requested in relation to pothole reports for SRPs section of the A725 is provided within Annex A to this response.
Scotland Transerv is responsible for the rest of the A725 trunk road and the details of pothole reports for their area can be found within Annex B, parts 1 and 2, to this response.

Due to file size Annex B part 2 has been split into 3 documents, namely Annex B Part 2 (i), (ii) & (iii).

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.