road safety audit for removal of guard rail at Cranston Road / Stanstead Road
Request ID: FOI-0478-2122 Date published: 28 June 2021
You asked
Thank you for taking the time to address my request, however, the information provided wasn’t quite what I was looking for. More specifically, I was hoping to gain access to the Road Safety Audit stage 1/2 (rather than stage 3) that was conducted at the yellow box junction located at the intersection of Stanstead Road and Cranston Road, although, I understand that this is unavailable due to the cost limit.
Since the RSA stage 3 report that was provided states that there were “no issues to raise regarding the removal of these sections of the PGR”, may I request a letter or email to confirm that the conclusion of the RSA stage 3 would be the same as stage 1/2 since this resulted in the removal of the pedestrian guardrails?
We answered
TfL Ref 0478-2021/22
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8 June 2021 asking for information about road safety audits for the yellow box junction at the junction of Cranston Road / Stanstead Road.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. You asked for: information regarding a road safety audit that was previously conducted at the yellow box junction located at the intersection of Stanstead Road and Cranston Road, following the removal of guardrails.
As mentioned in our previous correspondence, the pedestrian guard rail (PGR) was removed in two stages, the first part in around 2010 and the second part between 2012 and 2014, although we believe it likely to have been in 2013 for the removal of the second part.
We have located a road safety audit for the removal of the first part, and this has been provided to you.
However, it is not possible to provide the other audits you have requested within the cost limit as set out in section 12 of the FOI Act. Under section 12, a public authority such as TfL is not required to respond to a request if it would cost more than the £450 limit to determine if the information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract that information from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work.
We believe that, on the balance of probabilities it is possible that we do hold further audits for the removal of the PGR, but the time and resources it would take to locate, identify and extract them would exceed the cost limit. To explain further, the PGR removal records including Audits were stored on a SharePoint site that was not migrated to the newer version of this system when the project was completed. Whilst we have the backup, we do not have the infrastructure to view it without rebuilding the previous SharePoint system, the cost of which is considered prohibitively expensive and time consuming and would greatly exceed the prescribed appropriate limit.
We are also not able to provide you with a letter or email to confirm that the conclusion of the RSA stage 3 would be the same as stage 1 or 2 auditsunder FOIA. This is because we are not obliged to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request. We are therefore unable to consider your request since this would not come under the FOI Act and is not a request for recorded information that we currently hold.
I am sorry that we are not able to assist further with your request.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Sara Thomas FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
