FOI/202300343971 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
A9 and A99 closures and fatalities: EIR release
Information requested
Information about the amount of times the A9 Inverness to Thurso Road and the A99 Latheron to Wick Road has been closed for 2020, 2021, 2022 to present date 2023. Also how many fatalities on these roads for these dates.
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. Please see Annex A to this response showing details of closures for the A9 Inverness to Thurso Road and A99 Latheron to Wick Road from 1 January 2020 until 17 February 2023. Please see below table showing the number of fatalities for both roads
Fatal Casualties A9 - Inverness to Thurso* A99 - Latheron to Wick** 2020 0 0 2021 3 1 2022 4 0 Total 7 1
* From but not including Longman Roundabout to Thurso Bridge ** From junction with the A9 to start of Bridge Street, Wick Source: Transport Scotland Accident Manager Database Notes: Statistics forPolice Scotland Date Period: 01/01/2020- 31/12/2022 Date Extracted - 20/02/2023 Please note that the information provided is based on the current figures available. The following are potential reasons for an accident not appearing on our system: • Transport Scotland only holds accident information which is provided to us by Police Scotland. 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.
Detected exemption language
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.