Transport Scotland - A82 defects near Invergloy House: EIR release

Information requested

1. Dates of weekly driven road inspections on the A82 between Invergarry and Spean Bridge.

2. Details and photographs of all defects recorded during safety inspections on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

3. Details of all notifications raised with Traffic Scotland for surface deterioration/potholes on the A82 , 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

4. Details and photographs of defects raised following BEAR emergency attendance on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

5. Details and photographs of temporary repairs completed with photographs on the A82,3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

6. Details and photographs of permanent repairs completes with photographs on the A82,3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

GENERAL

1. Details of complaints raised with Traffic Scotland on the A82, 3miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

2. Details of complaints raised with BEAR Scotland on the A82,3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

3. Details of third party claims raised with Bear Scotland on the A82,3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House

4. Details of third party claims repudiated with BEAR Scotland on the A82,3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

5. Details of third party claims paid by BEAR Scotland on the A82. 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

6. Details of any cat 2 repairs and surfacing schemes completed on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

7. Details of any cat 2 repairs and surfacing schemes planned on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

8. Details of PAG ORI’s raised for potholes/sufacing defects on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

9. Details of PAG Hazard Notices raised for potholes/surfacing defects on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

10. Details of PAG MTR’s for potholes/resurfacing defects on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

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.

Please see Annex A for response to Q1 to Q6 and General Q6 and Q7.

Please see Annex B for response to General Q3, Q4 and Q5.

General Q1 - Details of complaints raised with Traffic Scotland on the A82, 3miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

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 there were no complaints raised with Transport Scotland for this location within the time frame requested.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about complaints raised with Transport Scotland at this location within the timeframe requested, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

General Q2 - Details of complaints raised with BEAR Scotland on the A82,3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

Answer to General Q2 - There was 1 complaint raised with BEAR Scotland in October 2023 regarding noise and traffic lights being outside a bedroom window.

General Q8 - Details of PAG ORI’s raised for potholes/sufacing defects on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

Answer to General Q8 - 4 ORIs were issued for carriageway defects within the extents of the locations provided below.

• ORI-NW-00270 issued 7/3/23 for pothole at Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (OSGR) 222286, 786599.
• ORI-NW-00271 issued 7/3/23 for carriageway edge deterioration at OSGR 221847, 786076
• ORI-NW-00805 issued 4/4/24 for carriageway edge deterioration at OSGR 222306, 786692
• ORI-NW-00806 issued 4/4/24 for pothole at OSGR 222288, 786641

General Q9 - Details of PAG Hazard Notices raised for potholes/surfacing defects on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

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 there were no PAG Hazard Notices raised for potholes/surfacing defects at this location within the time-frame requested.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about PAG Hazard Notices raised for potholes/surfacing defects at this location within the time-frame requested, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

General Q10 - Details of PAG MTR’s for potholes/resurfacing defects on the A82, 3 miles north and 3 miles south of Invergloy House.

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 there were no PAG MTR’s for potholes/resurfacing defects at this location within the timeframe requested.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about PAG MTR’s for potholes/resurfacing defects at this location within the timeframe requested, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under the exception at regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs a public authority may refuse a request for information if it is 'manifestly unreasonable'. The Scottish Information Commissioner's guidance on the regulation 10(4)(b) exception at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/Law/EIRs/EIRsExceptions.aspx says that there may “be instances where it is appropriate for the Commissioner to consider the proportionality of the burden on the public authority in terms of the costs and resources involved in dealing with a request when considering the application of this exception”.

It may be helpful to explain that your request for photographs of all defects, for four questions, for this particular area over three years resulted in more than six hundred photographs to be downloaded and matched to the defect reports which would impose a significant burden on the authority and would take an unreasonable proportion of time and resources away from other functions. For these reasons, we consider that your request is manifestly unreasonable and so we are refusing it under regulation 10(4) (b).

As the exception is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test'. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about photographs of road defects, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources by not incurring excessive costs when complying with information requests.

You may however wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order to make it manageable.

For example, if there are any key defect images you require, this would allow us to reduce the number of photographs required. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

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.

EIR 202500485925 - Information released - Annex A

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EIR 202500485925 - Information released - Annex B

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