Publication - FOI/EIR release

A78 proposed traffic island at Ravenscraig Hospital site Greenock: EIR release

Published: 24 September 2020
Topic: Public sector, Transport
FOI reference: FOI/202000060087
Date received: 10 July 2020
Date responded: 28 August 2020

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

Information requested

1.'For a) 2018 b) 2019 and c) 2020, dates, locations, attendance, minutes and agendas of meetings that took place between Transport Scotland and their contractors and Inverclyde Council regarding the proposed traffic island on the A78 (Inverkip Road) east of the entrance of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site in Greenock.

2. For a) 2018 b) 2019 and c) 2020, emails and letters between Transport Scotland and their contractors and Inverclyde Council regarding the proposed traffic island on the A78 (Inverkip Road) east of the entrance of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site in Greenock.

3. For a) 2018 b) 2019 and c) 2020, any signed agreement between Transport Scotland and their contractors and Inverclyde Council regarding the proposed traffic island on the A78 (Inverkip Road) east of the entrance of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site in Greenock.

4. Did Inverclyde Council comment only or did they liaise directly with Transport Scotland and the Developers design consultant in 2019 regarding the proposed traffic island on the A78 (Inverkip Road) east of the entrance of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site in Greenock? Please provide documentation.'

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.

I have numbered your enquiry for ease of reference -

1. Please see Annex A to this request, details of meetings held between Transport Scotland and their contractors and Inverclyde Council regarding the proposed traffic island on the A78 (Inverkip Road) east of the entrance of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site in Greenock.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does 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 no minutes were taken at these meetings.

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.

2. Please see Annex B to this request, e-mails between Transport Scotland and our contractors and Inverclyde Council regarding the proposed traffic island on the A78 (Inverkip Road) east of the entrance of the former Ravenscraig Hospital site in Greenock.

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.

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does 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 there is no signed agreement between Transport Scotland and our contractors and Inverclyde Council.

4. The developer consulted with Inverclyde Council by issuing a full design package in May 2019.
Inverclyde Council were also made aware of the pedestrian crossing in December 2018. The main review was carried out by Transport Scotland and Inverclyde Council added their own comments towards the end of the process (around Autumn 2019).

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