Structural Maintenance and Minor Improvement Schemes on A82 trunk road: EIR release

Information requested

A list of the number of upgrades to the A82 since 2021 along with the total cost of these upgrades.

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.

Since 2021 there has been 191 Structural Maintenance and Minor Improvement Schemes on the A82 trunk road. The total costs for these works were £31,683,140.

The Scottish Government also remains committed to improving the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan. The proposed improvement between Tarbet and Inverarnan comprises approximately 17km of new single carriageway that generally follows the line of the existing A82 trunk road, with localised offline sections where the existing road alignment is significantly substandard.

The Scottish Government has been clear that construction work on the A82 Tarbet to Inverarnan scheme would not take place at the same time as improvements to the A83 at the Rest and be Thankful in order to avoid significant disruption for local residents and businesses. Subject to the successful completion of the statutory process, the programme for delivery of the A82 Tarbet to Inverarnan scheme will need to be considered carefully to avoid overlap with the work on the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful along with the availability of funding.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.