National Highways

The complainant requested information used by National Highways (NH) to make a decision to pull Costain from the Northern Trans-Pennine upgrade project A66. The Commissioner’s decision is that section 43(2) of FOIA – commercial interests is engaged, however, the balance of the public interest favours disclosing the information in this case. He further finds that the majority of the withheld information is not in scope of the request as it relates to which of the remaining providers should undertake particular work. The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following step to ensure compliance with the legislation: To disclose pages 1 and 2 of the withheld information. The public authority must take this step within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.
Keywords: A66 Northern Trans-Pennine upgrade project