Bridge of Teith Pedestrian Safety Assessments: EIR release

Information requested

Copies of information held by Transport Scotland relating to pedestrian safety and accessibility on the Bridge of Teith carrying the A84 at Doune. Specifically, I request copies of the following documents and records from 1 January 2015 to the present date:

1. Any pedestrian risk assessments relating to the Bridge of Teith.

2. Any Road Safety Audits, accessibility reviews, Equality Impact Assessments (EQIA), Active Travel assessments, or similar reports concerning pedestrian use of the bridge.

3. Any reports, correspondence, meeting minutes, or studies discussing:

• pedestrian safety,
• footway width,
• accessibility concerns,
• wheelchair or pram access,
• traffic management measures,
• or proposals for a dedicated pedestrian/cycle crossing

4. Records of complaints, reported incidents, near misses, or safety concerns submitted by members of the public, community councils, elected representatives, or other stakeholders relating to pedestrian access across the bridge.

5. Any traffic surveys, vehicle counts, speed surveys, or modelling work undertaken in relation to the bridge and its approaches.

6. Details of any planned or proposed safety mitigation measures being considered, including traffic light controls, speed reductions, or alternative crossing infrastructure.

7. Copies of correspondence between Transport Scotland and Stirling Council concerning pedestrian safety or accessibility at the Bridge of Teith.

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.

With respect to the following questions:-

1. Any pedestrian risk assessments relating to the Bridge of Teith.

2. Any Road Safety Audits, accessibility reviews, Equality Impact Assessments (EQIA), Active Travel assessments, or similar reports concerning pedestrian use of the bridge.

3. Any reports, correspondence, meeting minutes, or studies discussing:

• pedestrian safety,
• footway width,
• accessibility concerns,
• wheelchair or pram access,
• traffic management measures,
• or proposals for a dedicated pedestrian/cycle crossing

5. Any traffic surveys, vehicle counts, speed surveys, or modelling work undertaken in relation to the bridge and its approaches.

7. Copies of correspondence between Transport Scotland and Stirling Council concerning pedestrian safety or accessibility at the Bridge of Teith.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs applies. This is whereby 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”.

By way of explanation, Transport Scotland's records are held on an electronic document system. Searches are conducted using keywords based on the request, those words may appear within a wide range of documents, including materials such as unconnected datasets that may fall outside the intended scope of your request. However, each document must still be individually reviewed to determine whether it is relevant or not.

Given the potential range of variables associated with the keywords used, together with the eleven-year timeframe specified, the search has resulted in an excessive number of records being returned. For example, in relation to Q1, the use of the keywords “A84”, “pedestrian risk assessments”, and “Bridge of Teith” has resulted in over one thousand six hundred documents being identified through searches. Similarly, searches for Q2 using the keywords “A84” and “Bridge of Teith” and “Road Safety Audits resulted in over one thousand and ninety documents being identified. Large volumes of results were identified for most, but not all of your questions.

As explained above each of these returns must be reviewed to determine if they are within the scope of your request. Given the volume of material identified, complying with the request as currently framed would require a disproportionate amount of time and resource to manually review each document to determine whether it falls within scope. This would place a significant burden on Transport Scotland and would divert resources away from our core functions. For these reasons, we consider that this part of 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 relating to pedestrian safety and accessibility on the Bridge of Teith carrying the A84 at Doune, including copies of documents noted above and records from 1 January 2015 to the present date, 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.

This could be achieved, for example, by narrowing the timeframe, specifying a more precise date range, or refining the information sought. 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 

For awareness, searches using the process outlined above produced the following results:-

Q1 – Over 3,400 documents to be reviewed

Q2 – Over 8,750 documents to be reviewed

Q3 – Over 22,690 documents to be reviewed

Q5 – Over 7120 documents to be reviewed

Q7 – Over 410 documents to be reviewed

Q4. You requested copies of records of complaints, reported incidents, near misses, or safety concerns submitted by members of the public, community councils, elected representatives, or other stakeholders relating to pedestrian access across the bridge.

A4. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. Transport Scotland does not have this information because Transport Scotland did not receive any complaints relating to pedestrian safety and accessibility on the Bridge of Teith carrying the A84 at Doune from 1 January 2015 until the date of your request. We also do not hold information on near misses.

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 relating to pedestrian safety and accessibility on the Bridge of Teith carrying the A84 at Doune from 1 January 2015 until the date of your request, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Please see Annexes A-H to this response for copies of records of reported incidents, near misses or safety concerns submitted by members of the public, community councils, elected representatives, or other stakeholders relating to pedestrian access across the bridge.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Q6. You requested details of any planned or proposed safety mitigation measures being considered, including traffic light controls, speed reductions, or alternative crossing infrastructure.

A6. There are no planned or proposed safety mitigation measures being considered at this location. Additionally, there are currently no works scheduled under the Trunk Road Active Travel programme for the A84 at the Bridge of Teith.

For information, the modelling undertaken demonstrates that any tested signal arrangement would have a considerable impact on vehicle movements in the area introducing congestion and delay on this part of the network. A signalised arrangement to deliver active travel opportunities to cross the Bridge of Teith is not therefore something that will be able to be progressed.

Amendments to the existing bridge or the construction of an adjacent separate active travel bridge would have considerable technical challenges and would be likely to require a significant level of funding. As such, any proposed improvement is likely to fall out with the scope of the Trunk Road Active Travel budget which is aimed at the provision of minor active travel schemes to promote everyday journeys, with an emphasis on safety. Local Authorities Regional Transport Partnerships and National Park Authorities can apply into Transport Scotland’s Active Travel Infrastructure Fund (ATIF) Tier 2 as a potential alternative funding source.

ATIF Tier 2 is the primary vehicle for the Scottish Government to fund active travel infrastructure of this scale. Applications for this year have closed, however I would suggest that the community could approach Stirling Council or Tactran to discuss how the aspirations to connect Deanston to Doune sit within their wider active travel priorities and strategies and whether they may wish to make an application to progress such a route in the future.

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.

FOI 202600517063 - Information released - Annex

File type

PDF

File size

8.8 MB