Repair and remedial works carried out on the M8 Westbound Junction 21: EIR release

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


Information requested

You asked for "an itemised list of all repair and remedial works carried out on the M8 Westbound Junction 21 from 01/12/2019 to 31/01/2020.

This should include:
The type of repair;
Date of repair/works;
List of road defects reported by the public with dates and type of defects."

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 regime s. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Please see annex a to this response for a defect report showing all repair and remedial works carried out on the M8 Westbound Junction 21 from 01/12/2019 to 31/01/2020.

With regards to your request for complaints by the public, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies is because we do not hold any defect complaints by the public for the location and date period you are interested in.

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 information about complaints of road defects, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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/202000109918 - Annex A - Defect report

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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