Transport Scotland - Costs for removing graffiti on trunk roads: EIR release

Information requested

Are you able to tell me how much has been spent on cleaning graffiti from Scotland's main/trunk roads that you look after in the last 6-12 months? And the previous 6-12 months?

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 M8, M73, M74 DBFO Improvements Project sits between the South East & South West Trunk Road Units, with the M80 DBFO to its north.

The project area includes;

M8 Junction 6 to Junction 10.
M73 Junction 1 to Junction 3.
M74 Junction 6 to Junction 3a.
A8 Newhouse to Swinton Roundabout.
A7071 Raith Interchange to the junction with the B7071.
A725 Bothwell Bridge (South of Raith) to Shawhead Junction.

In the last two and a half years the costs for removing graffiti from the areas above are as follows:

Previous 6 months - £24,628.91
Previous 12 months - £43,973.69
Prior 12 month period - £11,294.34

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 for all other areas of the trunk road network, no costs have been allocated against graffiti removal to date. However, it is likely that removal has been carried out as part of other cyclic works, but unfortunately we are not able to identify any specific costs in relation to graffiti removal. .

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 graffiti removal costs, 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.