M8 Junction 20 West Street safety inspection report and accident statistics: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
1. Information with regard to repairs & proposed repairs to be carried out on the M8 Junction 20 West Street off ramp June 2024 to February 2025.
2. Incident reports of damage to the carriageway and damage to vehicles on the carriageway received at your control room or otherwise informed to the aforementioned.
3. What mitigation action carried out from report of any defect/incident to prevent danger or damage to road users?
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.
1. Please see Annex A to this response for a copy of safety inspection report for the date and location required.
2. Please see Annex B to this response for a list of incidents of damage to carriageway and/or vehicles that was report to our Operating Company Amey for the location and time period requested.
3. All carriageways are inspected twice weekly. Any defects are noted and dealt with as follows,
For road surface Category 1 defects, the Operating Companies are required to carry out temporary repairs by 6am the following morning and permanent repairs within 28 days.
Lesser defects (which do not necessitate such an immediate safety-led response) as well as general deterioration from wear and tear, are recorded as Category 2 defects. These are then considered with findings from our annual assessments of the condition of the network to help determine future maintenance schemes. These include assessments of the strength of the road pavement as well as road surface conditions, including skid resistance. Resultant schemes may include localised patching repairs or larger maintenance schemes, which are then considered against competing priorities across the trunk road network and programmed accordingly.
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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG