A90 River Dee bridge noise survey: EIR release

Information requested

I write to you because I have received several complaints from residents regarding the noise from the AWPR in Milltimber and in particular the noise of traffic crossing the expansion joints on the A90 River Dee bridge. I have been advised that a noise survey pertaining to these joints was conducted last year and I would be grateful if you could please send me a copy of this.

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 am sorry to note residents ongoing concerns regarding noise at their properties. Following the construction of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie-Tipperty project.

Aberdeen Roads Limited (ARL), the project contractor is required to calculate noise levels outside nearby properties and to assess which properties might qualify under the provisions of the Noise Insulation (Scotland) Regulations 1975.

Please find attached a redacted copy of the Noise Insulation (Scotland) Regulations Assessment.

Personal information relating to residents addresses and individual staff members has been redacted from the assessment; the reason for this is explained below.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to 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.

Further explanation
Although there is no legislative requirement to publish noise reports for our major roads projects Transport Scotland has previously published these where appropriate to be helpful, transparent and open.

Following introduction of the Data Protection Act 2018 we have considered the requirements of the Act, how this applies to the information contained within the noise reports and whether the publication of these reports would still be possible.

We have concluded that to ensure we do not breach the Act we would be required to remove all personal data such as addresses, (which the Act deems personal information) from the report prior to publication. As removal of this information would make the reports meaningless, we do not intend to publish the reports at this time.

We can, however, provide individuals with noise results for their property should they request this from us, where Transport Scotland holds this information. Residents can request this information by contacting us at the above email address.

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.

FOI202100241262 - Information released

File type

32 page PDF

File size

364.9 kB