A96 Corridor Review costs and responses: EIR release

Information requested

Please could you tell me how many responses have been received so far to the Scottish Government's A96 Corridor Review, launched on November 28?

https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/a96-corridor-review-published/

Please could you tell me how much has been spent on the review itself and the consultation to date, broken down by costs?

Response

As all of 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.

Please could you tell me how many responses have been received so far to the Scottish Government's A96 Corridor Review, launched on November 28?

The 12 week consultation on the A96 Corridor Review draft outcomes closed on 21 February 2025 and over 1,400 responses were received from members of the public and stakeholders. The total as at the close of the consultation period was 1,439 responses which includes 1,409 online responses via the Questionnaire and 30 responses via email. Please note that whilst the consultation has closed, we still expect to receive a small number of additional responses by email from Stakeholders who indicated that they couldn’t meet the consultation deadline.

Please could you tell me how much has been spent on the review itself and the consultation to date, broken down by costs?

The total spent on the A96 Corridor Review up to the date of your request is £6,468,503.40.

This total includes the comprehensive appraisal work undertaken for the Review as well as both consultation events which took place. The first consultation event was undertaken in 2022 and the most recent consultation, which you refer to in your request, which closed on 21 February 2025. The specific consultation cost cannot be disaggregated from the wider A96 Corridor Review costs.

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.