Douglas Oakervee review of HS2: EIR release

Information requested

• According to the Greengauge 21 document 'High-Speed Rail and Scotland' [May 2020( https://www.rail-leaders.com/wp-content/uploads/High-Speed-Rail-and-Scotland.pdf )
• Transport Scotland made a submission to the Douglas Oakervee review of HS2, and this included proposals for new rail lines south of Glasgow, represented as 'vectors'.
• Assuming that is true, I would like to request 

(1.) the documents making up Transport Scotland's submission to the Douglas Oakervee review of HS2

(2.) other documentation held regarding the proposals for new rail lines south of Glasgow including the cost benefit analysis.

As the Transport Scotland submission to Oakervee does not seem to feature on the Transport Scotland website, I would also like to know  

(3.) how Greengauge 21 knew about it. 

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested

(1.) the documents making up Transport Scotland's submission to the Douglas Oakervee review of HS2
I have attached at a copy of the Transport Scotland submission to the Oakervee Review. However page 11 of the submission has some minor redactions and an exception under regulation 10(5)(f) of the EIRs has been applied to the information. Regulation 10(5)(f) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) allows a Scottish public authority to withhold environmental information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, cause substantial prejudice to the interests of a person who provided information voluntarily to the authority.

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 the release, however the redacted words and the redacted map figure are locations located in England which are being withheld in the short term to guard against planning blight as the study is still a work in progress.

(2.) other documentation held regarding the proposals for new rail lines south of Glasgow including the cost benefit analysis.
Proposals for new lines south of Glasgow are still being developed and once available this information will form the first of a two part work package that will be presented to UK and Scottish Government Ministers in due course to inform their future investment decisions. The second part of this work package to complete a Strategic Business Case study, which will include a Cost Benefit Analysis, has yet to be started.

As the Transport Scotland submission to Oakervee does not seem to feature on the Transport Scotland website, I would also like to know
(3.) how Greengauge21 knew about it.
As the submission to the Oakervee Review of HS2 contained information that had been sourced from an earlier Greengauge21 publication a copy of the Transport Scotland submission was send to Greengauge21 to demonstrate how their information had been used in context. The information referenced by Greengauge21 in their ‘High Speed Rail and Scotland’ report is freely available from Transport Scotland’s website which can be downloaded from: https://www.transport.gov.scot/projects/high-speed-rail/high-speed-rail/#42615

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-202000046027 - Information released

File type

12 page PDF

File size

1.1 MB