Records of damage caused by landslides: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for "how many properties have been damaged by landslides over the past ten years in Scotland and how many times have major trunk roads and motorways been blocked by landslides in the past ten years in Scotland."

On 17 September you further clarified that you were "looking for how many times, broken down by route, has Transport Scotland had to close a road due to a landslide in the past ten years?"

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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing part of your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. This is because we do not hold records on how
many properties have been damaged by landslides.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in properties damaged by landslides, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Please see the following table for road closures as a result of landslides over the last 10 years:

Route	Number of times closed
A68	1
A7	2
A82	2
A83	16
A9	1

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.