Publication - FOI/EIR release

Shared cycle and pedestrian path on the westbound side of the A898: EIR release

Published: 6 December 2023
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200331874
Date received: 23 November 2022
Date responded: 5 January 2023

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

Information relating to the shared cycle and pedestrian path situated adjacent to the A898 on the westbound side of the carriageway, specifically:

Information including sight of any written or electronic communication detailing any risk assessments carried out at the locus between February 2019 to date.
Information including sight of any written or electronic communication detailing the roads inspection regime and records at the locus between February 2019 to date.
Information including sight of any written or electronic communication detailing any incidents reported at the locus between February 2019 to date.
Information including sight of any written or electronic communication detailing any complaints reported at the locus between February 2019 to date.
Information including sight of any written or electronic communication detailing any maintenance and remedial works carried out at the locus between 1 February 2019 to date.
How often the locus is subject to an inspection.
When the last inspection took place prior to 7 February 2020.

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

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 is because no risk assessments were carried out at this location between 1 February 2019 and November 23 2022.
Please see Annexes A and B to this response, inspection records for the location (carriageway, footpath and cycleway) between 1 February 2019 and 23 November 2022. Routine Superficial Inspections: These shall be undertaken at weekly intervals when there is no permanent Resident Engineer staff on the bridge and at monthly intervals when there is a continual site presence. Erskine Bridge has a full time site presence, so these inspections are monthly. Annex C shows an extract of the Erskine Bridge Maintenance Manual detailing the inspection regime.
Please see Annexes E and F to this response for written or electronic communication detailing any incidents reported at the locus between February 2019 to date.
Please see Annex G to this response for written or electronic communication detailing any complaints reported at the locus between February 2019 to date.
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. Please see Annex D to this response details of remedial works between 1 February 2019 and 23 November 2022.
The footway in this area is classed as a Category C footway/cycle facility which has the inspection regime of once at least every 12 months. “Category C Cycle Facilities and Footways shall be inspected at intervals not exceeding 12 months".
The last inspection before February 2020 was 2 September 2019.

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