A96 accident statistics and improvement costs: EIR release

Information requested

‘In the last five financial years, including 2022-23 so far, how many (i) deaths (ii) serious injuries and (iii) minor injuries have occurred as a result of crashes on the A96?

In the last five financial years, including 2022-23 so far, how much money has been invested in upgrading the A96?

Specifically, how much money has been invested in the last five financial years, including 2022-23 so far, in upgrading the A96 within the boundaries of the Moray Council area?'

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 have numbered your enquiry for ease of reference.

1. Please see attached Annex A to this response, accident data for the A96.

2. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. This is because the latest date we have figures for is 30 September 2022.

From 1 April 2018 - 30 September 2022 Transport Scotland has invested £37,785,132 on the management and maintenance of the A96, this figure includes both Operating Company (Operations) and WC (Work Contracts) spend including CPF (Contract Price Fluctuations) as well as pro-rata ‘All route’ and Core Operation spend.

In the last five financial years, £61,005,046.25 has also been spent in taking forward the development and assessment work on the A96 Dualling Programme from 01 April 2017 to 20 November 2022, the date of the request.

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. This is because maintenance expenditure is not recorded by Council areas.

In respect of the A96 Dualling Programme, we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. 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. Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested because the development and assessment work undertaken as part of the A96 Dualling Programme extends across multiple Local Authority boundaries and the associated expenditure on this work has not been recorded by boundary split.

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 202200331153 - Information Released - Annex

File type

1 page PDF

File size

100.5 kB