Construction work costs undertaken outside Lochaber High School, Fort William: EIR release

Information requested

"You recently provided me with the attached information following my FOI request. The works at the first phase at Lochy Bridge to the Lochaber High School overrun and completed in April. The budgeted cost you advised was £324,000. Now that the first phase is complete I would be grateful if you could advise me of the actual cost. I appreciate that all invoices may not yet have come in and if that is the case could you please advise of the cost of bills received to date?"

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.

The construction costs measured to 23 May 2025 are in the order of £732,230.84 however these costs are subject to ongoing measurement review. The rise in costs are due to increased scope of works including changes required due to conditions encountered on site, traffic delay mitigation measures and weather delays.

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