A75 and A77 trunk roads: EIR release

Information requested

Can you answer the following questions, under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2012, in relation to both the A75 and A77 trunk roads in South West Scotland:

1) During the period January 2016 to January 2021 inclusive, how many road traffic collisions were reported on the A75, A76 and A77?
2) During the period January 2016 to January 2021 inclusive, how many road casualties were reported on the A75, A76 and A77?
3) During the period January 2016 to January 2021 inclusive, how many complaints or letters of inquiry did Transport Scotland receive regarding the safety, road conditions and HGV use on both the A75, A76 and A77?
4) During the period January 2016 to January 2021 inclusive, what was the total cost from Transport Scotland, or its partner agencies, of maintenance and or improvement on the A75, A76 and A77?
5) During the period January 2016 to January 2021 inclusive, did emergency services – police, ambulance, fire – raise concerns with Transport Scotland over the condition or safety of the A75, A76 or A77?

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.

To aid with my response I have retained the numbering from your request above.

1 and 2 - Please see Annex A to this response for details of collisions and casualties for the routes and time periods requested.

3.  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 the information in the format you have requested as our corporate correspondence systems record cases by route number and not by subject type. However, for the period 01/01/2016 - 31/01/2021 I can confirm that we received the following correspondence for the routes you are interested in:

A75 - 208
A76 - 38
A77 - 178

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 correspondence received, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

4. Since the beginning of the financial year 2016/17 Scottish Ministers have invested £46,600,583, £35,604,061 and £41,885,892 on the managing and improving the A75, A76 and A77 respectively.

During the same period Scottish Ministers have spent £1,209,554 and £21,933,625 on Major Projects on the A75 and A77 respectively. Figures include both OC (Operations) and WC (Work Contracts) spend including Contract Price Fluctuation (CPF) as well as prorata ‘All route’ and Core Operation spend.

5. In the time frame requested Police Scotland has raised 1 matter of road safety on the A76.

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- 202100218949 - Annex A

File type

1 page PDF

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105.5 kB