Transport Scotland - Information relating to the traffic management arrangements for the Arkleston Road overbridge: EIR release

Information requested

In a previous response (reference 202600514080), Transport Scotland advised that it had received no complaints regarding the bridge works and no concerns relating to access, congestion, or safety.

However, separate correspondence from Transport Scotland described a range of mitigation measures including manual signal operation, stakeholder engagement, review of local impacts, signal timing adjustments, and ongoing operational monitoring.

To better understand the basis upon which Transport Scotland assessed and managed these impacts, I request the following information for the period from 4 June 2025 to the date of this request:

• The number of formal complaints received by Transport Scotland concerning the Arkleston Road bridge restrictions, traffic management arrangements, congestion, access difficulties, safety concerns, pedestrian issues, or impacts on local organisations.
• The number of enquiries, concerns, representations, reports, observations, stakeholder contacts, or other communications received by Transport Scotland concerning:
  • traffic congestion;
  • access difficulties;
  • pedestrian safety;
  • impacts on local businesses;
  • impacts on community facilities;
  • impacts on schools, churches, healthcare facilities, or other institutions;
  • the adequacy of the traffic management arrangements.
• Copies of, or summaries of, records of stakeholder engagement relating to local impacts arising from the traffic management arrangements, including engagement with:
  • Renfrewshire Council;
  • local elected members;
  • community organisations;
  • local businesses;
  • leisure facilities;
  • educational establishments;
  • places of worship.
• Copies of, or summaries of, operational reports, logs, site records, monitoring reports, meeting notes, or similar documents which discuss:
  • congestion;
  • traffic queues;
  • access difficulties;
  • safety concerns;
  • local impacts;
  • proposed mitigation measures; or
• the continuing management of the restrictions.
• information identifying the records, searches, or sources relied upon when Transport Scotland concluded in response 202600514080 that no complaints or concerns relating to access, congestion, or safety had been received.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am seeking information regardless of whether matters were formally categorised as complaints and include concerns, enquiries, stakeholder representations, operational reports, observations, correspondence, or other recorded information relating to the impact of the restrictions on the local community.

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.

Response to your request

Q1. You requested the number of formal complaints received by Transport Scotland concerning the Arkleston Road bridge restrictions, traffic management arrangements, congestion, access difficulties, safety concerns, pedestrian issues, or impacts on local organisations.

A1. Transport Scotland record formal complaints and correspondence regarding issues or concerns separately on their case management and ministerial correspondence system.This system is used to manage correspondence. The case management system does not hold any records of formal complaints being logged in respect of Arkleston Road bridge restrictions, traffic management arrangements, congestion, access difficulties, safety concerns, pedestrian issues, or impacts on local organisations from 4 June 2025 until the date of your request. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. 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 this information, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Our Operating Company, Amey, advise that formal complaints are logged as Incidents, enquiries and correspondence. They confirm they logged a total of 34 such incidents from 4 June 2025 until the date of your request.

Q2. You requested "the number of enquiries, concerns, representations, reports, observations, stakeholder contacts, or other communications received by Transport Scotland concerning:

• traffic congestion;
• access difficulties;
• pedestrian safety;
• impacts on local businesses;
• impacts on community facilities;
• impacts on schools, churches, healthcare facilities, or other institutions;
• the adequacy of the traffic management arrangements"

A2. Searches of the case management system using all of the above key words confirm Transport Scotland has received 4 enquires as outlined above during the period 4 June 2025 until the date of your request.

Q3. You requested "copies of, or summaries of, records of stakeholder engagement relating to local impacts arising from the traffic management arrangements, including engagement with:

• Renfrewshire Council;
• local elected members;
• community organisations;
• local businesses;
• leisure facilities;
• educational establishments;
• places of worship.

A3. Please see Annex 1 and Annex 2. These have been sent to you by separate e-mail. We have excluded correspondence from yourself under Regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs as that is already available to you. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some 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.

Q4. You requested " copies of, or summaries of, operational reports, logs, site records, monitoring reports, meeting notes, or similar documents which discuss:

• congestion;
• traffic queues;
• access difficulties;
• safety concerns;
• local impacts;
• proposed mitigation measures; or
• the continuing management of the restrictions"

A4. Please see Annex 1 and Annex 2. 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.

Q5. You requested " Information identifying the records, searches, or sources relied upon when Transport Scotland concluded in response 202600514080 that no complaints or concerns relating to access, congestion, or safety had been received"

A5. Transport Scotland's records are held on an electronic document system. Searches are conducted using keywords based on the request. Our records show the key words used to search for information in respect of your previous correspondence ref: 202600514080 was "Arkleston Road Overbridge and Complaints and Safety". These searches resulted in 0 documents being identified. The same key word search was completed on the case management system for correspondence and also produced 0 results.

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 202600523300 - Information released - Annex 1

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PDF

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1.4 MB

EIR 202600523300 - Information released - Annex 2

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13.0 MB