Analysis of the revenue generated by the motorcycle parking charge

Dear Sir or Madam,

Would you please provide a DETAILED breakdown, item by item,
project by project or development by development, of how the
revenue generated by the experimental motorcycle parking charge was
spent during the period August 2008 (when the charge was
introduced) to 30th April 2009. Please provide the exact amount in
pounds sterling that was spent on each project/development/item. If
all the revenue generated during the period has not yet been spent,
please provide a DETAILED breakdown of how the council intends to
spend that residual revenue and by when.

Please aslo advise any project(s), development(s) or item(s) to
which no additional funds would have been allocated should the
motorcycle parking scheme had not been experimented.

Finally, for each project/development/item listed in your detailed
breakdown, please briefly explain the reason why the council has
decided to spend the revenue specifically generated by the
motorcycle parking charge and not use another source of income.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Thomas

Dear Sir or Madam,

A response to FOI request number 3837 "Analysis of the revenue
generated by the motorcycle parking charge" is now overdue. You
should have replied by now to comply with the Freedom Information
Act 2000, you are breaking the law. Please respond at your earliest
convenience.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Thomas

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Westminster City
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Analysis of the revenue
generated by the motorcycle parking charge'.

You should have replied to this FOI request by 23rd June 2009. Your
delay in responding is totally unacceptable under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. I give you another 7 working days to provide
me with an answer after which time I will forward the case on to
the Information Commissioner's office for investigation.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/an...

Yours faithfully,

Mr Thomas

Dear Sir or Madam,

This request was put in on 23rd May 2009. I subsequently requested
an internal review of the way this FOI has been handled and am
still waiting for an answer. Please treat this message as a request
for you to investigate the way this FOI has been handled under
stage 1 of the Council's complaint procedures.

The Council is in breach of Freedom of Information Act 2000 for not
having replied within the 20 working days allowed. Please note that
I now intend to forward the details of this FOI on to the
Information Commissionner for investigation, your delay in replying
being totally unacceptable. I urge you to reply at your earliest
opportunity, given that I understand from your response to FOI
number 3933 (submitted by someone else but for which the details
are publicly made available), that the Council has recently
recruited additional staff to deal with FOI requests. Any further
delay is unacceptable and I am prepared to contact the Information
Commissioner to obtain a response from you, should I not receive
one within 5 working days.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Thomas

Dear T Holden,

I wonder how many times you are going to say "I apologise for the
delay in responding to your Freedom of Information Request: I note
that this has still not been responded to as of today’s date and
have ascertained that the department that is dealing with your
request intends to respond by the end of this week.

A response should have been provided promptly within the 20 working
day period. This delay is unacceptable, and therefore your
complaint is upheld.

Because of this complaint, we have undertaken steps to ensure
awareness of the requirements of the Act across departments. We
have also recruited new staff and reviewed procedures to ensure
these delays do not occur again".

Repeating the same excuses over and over again is not good enough,
please take action and adhere to the law, which is to answer all
FOI requests within 20 working days.

I look forward to receiving your response by the end of the week,
which is well overdue. Please note that if I do not receive an
adequate response by the end of this week, I will not hesitate to
forward this FOI and its related correspondence to the Information
Commissioner for investigation.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Thomas

Dear Ms Holden,

I thought I was going to receive a response to this FOI request by
the end of last week, per your latest note dated 29th July 2009.

This FOI request was initially submitted on 23rd May 2009 and,
despite having chased on a few occasions, no response has yet been
provided.

Please respond within 24 hours or I will send an official complaint
to the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Thomas

Dear Ms Holden,

I note that the Council has taken over 3 months to answer this FOI
request, instead of the allowed 20 working days by the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Westminster City Council have indeed breached
the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and all this delay to advise
that you do not have the information available to answer my
questions. A typical response from you when you don't want to
disclose information to the public related to the Council's
activities. Should I had not chased many times for a response, I
would have never received one, and I believe this is what you were
hoping for, which no doubt explains your continued silence for
months. I am sure that the members of the public who will read this
message will draw their own conclusions about the way Westminster
City Council have handled this FOI request. In the meantime, I may
pass on the details to the Information Commissioner for
investigation of your very long delay in providing a response.

Would you please provide a full breakdown, item by item, project by
project and/or development by development of the £34.4m surplus
from all on-street parking facilities in 2008/9. In your breakdown,
please include details of any motorcycle parking related
items/develpments/projects.

This time around, would you please be kind enough to comply with
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regulations in coming back to
me with a response.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Thomas

Dear Customer Relations,

Thank you for your response to this FOI request.

I can see that not a single penny has been specifically spent on
motorcycle parking from the £34 million parking income surplus
generated in 2008/09, and yet the City Council are charging for
motorcycle parking.

Councillor Chalkley has advised that he is keen to have security
devices installed in the motorcycle parking bays (this being one of
the reasons for the bike parking tax), but according to your
breakdown, not a single penny from the parking income surplus seems
to have actually been spent on the provision of security devices
for motorcycles.

I am sure that the members of the public who will come across this
FOI request will realise that the revenue generated by the
motorcycle parking charge is nothing but a pure stealth tax imposed
on motorcyclists, which brings absolutely no specific benefits to
them.

Thank you for making all this very clear.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Thomas