Correspondence on upgrade of the A90/A937 since May 2021: FOI release

Information requested

• A copy of correspondence between Aberdeenshire Council and Transport Scotland regarding the upgrade since May 2021; especially pertaining to the technical objection; both sent and received.
• A copy of any ministerial correspondence mentioning "Laurencekirk junction" since May 2021.

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

In regards to your first point please find enclosed the requested information in Annex A.

With regard to the second point of your request, please find the enclosed information at Annex B to this letter. Please note we have only provided correspondence from 4 November 2021, being the date we received your clarification response in relation to your previous FOISA request of 18 October 2021 under reference 202100248807, as all available information up to the date of the clarification was provided in response to that request.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.

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. This exception has been applied to Annexes A and B contained within this response.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202200299560 - Annex A

File type

154 page PDF

File size

6.6 MB

FOI - 202200299560 - Annex B

File type

7 page PDF

File size

541.4 kB