5 June 2009

Dear Ms Davis

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

Your request for information has now been considered and the information requested is enclosed. I trust that this information meets with your current needs. If you have any further questions or queries do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note, that where a single request, or a number of requests from the same source, cost the Council more than £450 (or 18 hours) to administer we may charge for, refuse, or ask the applicant to resubmit a more manageable request. An estimate would be provided if any charge was to be incurred.

Please be aware that the information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication or marketing, would require the permission of the copyright holder.

If you have any queries, concerns or if you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request please contact me as above. Alternatively, if you wish to make an official complaint then please use the Council's complaints procedure, details of which will be provided on request. If you are not content with the outcome of your corporate complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner.

Further information is available from the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire,
SK9 5AF. Telephone: 01625 545 700. www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Clare Furlong

CLARE FURLONG

Policy and Performance Team

RESPONSE:

You asked

Please can you provide me with the following information under the

Freedom Of Information Act 2000:-

(a) addresses and rateable values of empty Commercial properties that are within Carlisle City Council area; and

The City Council does not hold a fully comprehensive database of all the empty commercial properties in the district, however, the following information is available on our website:

Commercial Property Register - The City Council provides a free Vacant Commercial Sites and Premises Service for businesses and developers seeking new sites or premises. This includes information provided by 30 local agents, property owners and developers. This information is updated regularly and available via the City Council's website - www.carlisle.gov.uk/premises. You will need to register (free) to use this service. Please note this database also includes other categories of premises as well as empty ones. This database will give you the address and postcode required to search the VOA website for the rateable value.

We are exempt from providing the rateable values of empty commercial properties in the area as the rateable value information is already available on the VOA website, http://www.voa.gov.uk/. This is exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, information accessible by other means.

For your information this letter constitutes a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act and an exemption under Section 21 of the Act is being applied, namely the information is accessible by other means, eg the VOA website.

(b) the names of the owners of those properties referred to in (a)

We do not hold this information. We do not hold the names of the owners of the properties referred to in (a). We only hold the names of the ratepayers.