A9 and A99 maintenance and planned works information: EIR release

Information requested

1. basic details of the overall maintenance budgets for the A9 and the A99 (separately)from north of the Dornoch bridge to Scrabster for the A9 and Wick for the A99 from 2017/18 to now.

2. I also ask for basic details of the expenditure incurred on maintenance each year for the same roads over the same period.

3. Finally, I ask for any available information on capital works planned on these roads up to the year 2046. For any such works please indicate approximate costs. I do not include regular maintenance costs in this final request but am meaning any road widening, bridge replacement or any other physical improvements.

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.

You asked for:
1. basic details of the overall maintenance budgets for the A9 and the A99 (separately)from north of the Dornoch bridge to Scrabster for the A9 and Wick for the A99 from 2017/18 to now.

2. I also ask for basic details of the expenditure incurred on maintenance each year for the same roads over the same period.

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. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we do not have the information you have requested. The reason why we do not have the information requested is because budgets are not broken down to this level, however, please see Annex A for the total spend per route for the A9 and A99.

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 maintenance budgets and expenditure, we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

You asked for:

3, Finally, I ask for any available information on capital works planned on these roads up to the year 2046. For any such works please indicate approximate costs. I do not include regular maintenance costs in this final request but am meaning any road widening, bridge replacement or any other physical improvements.

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. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we do not have the information you have requested.

The reason why we do not have the information requested is because we are only contractually obliged to provide a three-year programme for future works except for Major Bridges, which requires a ten-ear programme. The most recent information is attached and it should be noted that the values are estimates.

Please see Annex's B to I for information on capital works planned within time frames set out above.

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 capital works planned up to the year 2046, we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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 202600503893 - Information Released - Annex A - I

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