Cycling accidents at the A835 and A890 railway crossings: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for "details of all accidents involving cyclists that have been recorded at or adjacent to the following two level crossings:

• A835 Garve
• A890 Balnacra

I do not require any personal information but would be grateful to see as much other information as you are able to release, in particular the date/time and description, as recorded from Stats19 or other sources."

You further clarified that you would like this information to cover the date range 1 January 2000 to 10 December 2020.

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.

Please see Annex A to this response for details of accidents involving cyclists recorded at the level crossing at A835 Garve. Please note Transport Scotland currently only has accident data up to 30 October 2020.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. We do not have some of the information you have requested because Transport Scotland is not responsible for the management and maintenance of the A890.

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 accidents involving cyclists, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

However, you may wish to contact Highland Council at https://www.highland.gov.uk/info/704/data_protection_and_freedom_of_information/340/freedom_of_information who may be able to help you.

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.

FOI202000122318 - Annex A

File type

Excel document

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307.8 kB