Rail electrification in Scotland: EIR release

Information requested

You originally asked for:

Please can you provide, for each UK financial year since the devolution of rail infrastructure funding in 2006/2007, information on how many track kilometres of railway in Scotland have:
a) Had overhead line equipment (OLE) newly installed.
b) Had this OLE permanently energised.
c) Had electric passenger service first operating on them.

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.

Thank you for clarifying and providing background to your request. It might be helpful to explain that Transport Scotland’s role is as the national transport agency for Scotland. Improvement works to the rail network in Scotland, although funded by Transport Scotland, are primarily undertaken by Network Rail. With this in mind, Transport Scotland does not hold the information with the level of detail you are looking for in your request in the points a) and b) above.

Regulation 10(4)(a) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) allows public authorities to refuse to make environmental information available if they don’t hold the information when the request is received.

I hereby provide you with formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004, that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. I would suggest that you contact Network Rail, as it might hold the information you have requested. You can contact Network Rail on: Freedom of information (FOI) - Network Rail

We can offer information to the point c) for each electrification project undertaken so far in Scotland. Please see below:

Scheme	Date of opening to passenger services	STK electrified
Airdrie – Bathgate Re-opening	12 December 2010	106
Paisley Corridor Upgrade	9 January 2012 (Date of final commissioning)	36
Paisley Canal Electrification	10 December 2012	9
Cumbernauld Electrification	19 May 2014	50
Rutherglen and Coatbridge Electrification	14 December 2014	26
Edinburgh – Glasgow Improvement Programme	12 December 2017	150
Stirling – Dunblane – Alloa Electrification	9 December 2018	100
Shotts Line Electrification	24 February 2019	74

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.