A4 Flyover Closure at Hammersmith Contingency Plans

Dear Mr Jackson

 

TfL Ref:          FOI-1341-1112

 

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 5
January 2012 asking for information about the contingency plans for the
closure of the Hammersmith Flyover.

 

Your request will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. 

 

A response will be provided to you by 2 February 2012.

 

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
feel free to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

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Dear Mr Jackson

 

TfL Ref:          FOI-1341-1112

 

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 5
January 2012 asking for information about the contingency plans for the
closure of the Hammersmith Flyover.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. I can
confirm TfL does hold the information you require. You asked for:

 

Details of any specific contingency plans which existed prior to the
closure to handle, specifically, the closure of the Hammersmith Flyover.
Please provide details of any plans which existed to minimise or reduce
disruption in the event of closure of the flyover, and any considerations
to the likely impact of closure.

 

Please find attached the Emergency Preparedness Plan (EPP) we circulated
to the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The EPP was written
following a meeting between key TfL staff on 5 August 2011 (minutes
attached).

 

Please note that in accordance with TfL’s obligations under the Data
Protection Act 1998 (DPA) any personal data has been removed, as required
by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of this
personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first
principle of the DPA, which requires all processing of personal data to be
fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal
information when the individuals involved are unaware that is intended to
be disclosed. Furthermore, it would mean that TfL was in breach of one of
the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act which requires
that the processing of data is ‘fair’.

 

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

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Dear Mr Jackson

 

TfL Ref:          FOI-1588-1112

 

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 2
February 2012 asking for further information about the contingency plans
for the closure of the Hammersmith Flyover.

 

Your request will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. 

 

A response to your FOI request will be provided to you by 1 March 2012.

 

You have also stated that you are dissatisfied with the handling of your
request for information under the Freedom of Information Act. As such, a
review will be conducted by an internal review panel in accordance with
TfL’s Internal Review Procedure, which is available via the following URL:

 

[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/f...

 

Every effort will be made to provide you with a response by 1 March 2012.
However, if the review will not be completed by this date, we will contact
you and notify you of the revised response date as soon as possible.

 

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
feel free to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[2][TfL request email]

 

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12 April 2012

 

Our reference: IRV-115-1112

 

Dear Mr Jackson

 

I am contacting you further to your request for an internal review of the
handling of your request for information. You requested:

 

·         Details of any specific contingency plans which existed prior to
the closure to handle specifically the closure of the Hammersmith Flyover

·         Details of any plans which existed to minimise to reduce
disruption in the event of closure of the flyover and any considerations
to the likely impact of closure

 

The review has been carried out by a panel of individuals who were not
involved in preparing the response to your original request. I am sorry
about the delay in providing you with this response.

 

The review panel considered that the original response did actually for
the most part provide the requested information with regard to “plans
which existed to minimise or reduce disruption in the event of closure of
the flyover and any considerations to the likely impact of closure”. The
Emergency Preparedness Plan and associated Scenarios did constitute the
information that existed prior to the closure, particularly with respect
to the Diversion plans proposed in the event of closure, where the routes
user were chosen as the main roads deemed most suitable for any traffic
being diverted. We have been advised that this information is all that
existed prior to the closure, as specified in your request. The panel
therefore considers that this addresses specific query you raised in your
request for an internal review regarding diversion plans.

 

However, the review panel also felt that the response took an overly
narrow approach to identifying information that was relevant to your
request, particularly with respect to traffic modelling (and this is
consistent with the minutes of the meeting of August 12 2011, as referred
to in your email of 1 February). The panel considered that your request
concerned measures (including administrative measures) likely to have an
effect on the environment, and that therefore should have been considered
under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

 

We have therefore been in touch with the business areas to establish
whether there was further information held at the time of the request that
should have been released to you. However, it appears that we have in fact
disclosed all relevant information to you. We note your reference to the
minutes of the meeting on 12 August 2011 and the reference in point 4.7 to
carrying out Traffic Modelling and Forward Planning. However, we have been
advised that in fact no traffic modelling of full closure of the flyover
took place and that therefore there is no further information to be
released in relation to this request.

 

However, I understand that Nick Atkinson has been in touch with you
directly and has provided further information regarding traffic levels. I
hope that this has been of use and interest to you for the period
following your request. However, this does not relate to this internal
review, which has focused on the information held at the time of your
request.

 

On behalf of TfL, please accept my apologies for the shortcomings in the
handling of your request. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the
request and this review, you can refer the matter to the independent
authority responsible for overseeing the operation of the Freedom of
Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations, at the
following address:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

 

A complaint form is available on the ICO’s website ([1]www.ico.gov.uk).

 

Yours sincerely

 

Peter Sloane

 

Peter Sloane | Senior Information Governance Adviser (Enforcement and
Complaints)

Information Governance | General Counsel | Transport for London

Windsor House, 42-50 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0TL

T: 020 7126 4912 | E: [2][email address]

 

TfL has recently adopted an ‘information security classification scheme’
to help protect its information assets. If you work for TfL or one of its
subsidiaries and want to find out how this affects you, see the new
[3]Quick Guide or visit [4]Source for more information.

 

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References

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Dear Mr Jackson

 

TfL Ref:          FOI-1588-1112

 

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 2
February 2012 asking for further information about the contingency plans
for the closure of the Hammersmith Flyover.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and TfL’s information access policy.
I apologise for the delay in replying. You asked for:

 

1.    Minutes of planning meetings subsequent to the meeting of August 12

 

I can confirm TfL holds some of the information you require.

 

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed
the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

 

Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a
request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the
information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other
information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25
per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.

 

We have estimated that it would cost over £10,000 to provide a response to
your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take
over 400 working hours to retrieve, assess and compile the information you
have requested.

 

No formal meetings occurred after the meeting of 12 August. Several
discussions took place but minutes were not taken of these conversation
and actions points were often discussed in e-mails. There are over 6,000
emails relating to the Hammersmith Flyover closure and these would all
need to be read through so that the relevant information could be
extracted to enable us to answer your request.

 

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450
limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more
easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. For
example, you may wish to focus your request by being more specific about
the particular information you wish to obtain and limiting it, for
instance, to a more restricted timeframe or topic.

 

Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive
your revised request.

 

2.    Any versions of the Emergency Preparedness Plans subsequent to that
of October 29, 2011

 

There are no further versions of the Emergency Preparedness Plans.

 

If you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please feel
free to contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

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