Dear CCBC,

I make the following request under the provisions of the Freedom of
Information Act.

At at meeting of the Colwyn Bay Promenade Consultative Group on
16th October 2008 at Colwyn Bay Town Hall, it was stated that
funding had been identified for the Sea Defence Strategy /
Promenade Improvement Project to the tune of some £28million plus
an additional £5million had been identified for improved links
between the town centre and the promenade.

I understand these joint projects are now quite advanced, and in
any case have obviously received a great deal of attention in order
to reach the stage where major funding talks with outside agencies
have taken place.

Victoria Pier, which at approximately 1 acre is the largest
privately owned property on the promenade/fore-shore, will
obviously be greatly affected by the proposed works.

I would like you to confirm what consultation has been carried out
with, or in relation to, Victoria Pier with regard to these
proposed projects. I asked this question in person at the
consultative group meeting, but none of the persons present
(including many employees of CCBC) could answer the question.
Presumably the relevant project leaders will have the answers.

I would also like a list, with contact details, of the funding
bodies that have offered, or indicated they might offer, or have
been identified as possible sources (whichever is the case) of the
£28m + £5m referred to above, indicating in each case how much each
body may be contributing to the project, should it go ahead.
If it is not obvious from the name of each funding body, could you
please confirm if the money is from Welsh Assembly funds, Central
UK government funds, or European bodies.

I trust this request is simple and concise enough for you.

Your nemesis,

Steve Hunt.

Dear Mr Hunt

Thank you for your e-mail requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. We will now proceed with the request and it is our
intention to have responded by 4/2/2009, if not sooner.

Some of the information we hold may be regarded as exempt information under
the provisions of the Act i.e. it will not or cannot be given to you and you
will be advised if this is the case.

Once the information has been identified the Council may also ask that a fee
be paid for processing and delivering the information to you. Details of any
fee to be charged will be notified to you as soon as possible.
Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth/Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistef Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-Bost / E-Mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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Dear Info Regs Unit,

Just a reminder that you MUST fulfil my request by Wednesday 4th
February 2009.

If you fail yet again to comply with the Law, another formal
complaint will be made to the ICO, who as you are aware are
currently investigating your failure to comply with a previous
request I made to you 2 years ago.

Steve Hunt

Dear Mr Hunt

Please find attached in formation in relation to your enquiry.

In terms of possible funding sources be advised that European
Convergence Funding has been applied for and is awaiting confirmation or
otherwise.

If for whatever reason you are unhappy with the response please contact
us direct by e-mail or by post addressed to Conwy County Borough
Council, Information Regulations Unit, Bodlondeb, Conwy, LL32 8DU.

Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth/Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistef Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-Bost / E-Mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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Dear Info Regs Unit,

It is noted that you took the maximum possible time allowed by the
Freedom of Information Act in order to comply with my request.

It would seem from the documents you have supplied that there has
been ABSOLUTELY NO CONSULTATION WHATSOEVER with the owner of
Victoria Pier (me).

Please confirm whether or not this is the case.

There appears to be a page of the list of consultees missing from
the documents supplied... if you open the pdf file, the last two
pages list consultees and are numbered 7 and 9... presumably there
is a page 8? - it makes no sense otherwise as Welsh Water and
British Telecom, for example, are not residents associations.

Please now provide the complete list of consultees. You are
reminded that have not complied with my FOI request until ALL
documents relating to my request are supplied, and you are now past
the time limit for compliance, so I do hope you will attend to this
without further delay.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hunt

Dear Mr Hunt

Please accept our apologies, page 8 was omitted in error and is now
forwarded as attached.

You will note the Colwyn Bay Pier Owner is referred to in A.4.

Also on page 15 of the pdf document there is a copy of a Consultation -
Colwyn Bay Coastal Strategy letter dated 26/4/2006.
The following page (page 16) consists of the distribution list the
letter was sent to, which details your good self.

Apologises again for any inconvenience.

Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth/Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistef Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-Bost / E-Mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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Dear Info Regs Unit,

So to clarify, are you saying you sent me a letter (as per page 15
of the pdf document shown here) on the 26th April 2006?

I have received no such letter.

If such a letter was genuinely produced in April 2006, then a copy
of it would have shown up, and by law should have been been
provided, in the results of my Subject Access Request made under
the Data Protection Act on 15th January 2007, which you have
recently stated in your submission to the County Court is complete.
There was no copy of this alleged letter in the limited amount of
documents you provided, nor is it referenced to in any way in any
other document I have.

So evidently either this alleged letter was never produced, or my
S.A.R. of 15/01/2007 is not complete is it? ... You decide - you
cannot have it both ways!

Furthermore, is this one alleged letter (that I did not receive,
and there is no record of at all in your files) the sum total of
the consultation with Victoria Pier?

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hunt

Dear Mr Hunt

There is no specific copy of the letters sent to you (or anyone else)
retained on record, nor is there any need/requirement to do so. What is
retained on record, which has been sent to you as part of your FOI
request, is a copy of the Consultation letters dated 26/4/2006,
30/11/2006 and 21/12/2006 together with a one redacted record of those
names/organisations it was mail merged with and sent out to. Therefore
these three letters would not constitute personal data relative to your
good self, or anyone else for that matter, and furthermore would not
then be picked up in any search carried out as a result of a Subject
Access Request under Data Protection Act.

Included in the information sent to is information on;
* News article 'Crunch time for battered sea defence' dated 29
March 2007;
* Consultation letter dated 21 December 2006;
* Article in Conwy Bulletin 'Have your say on the bay';
* News article 'Your say on the bay', dated 7 December 2006;
* BBC News website article 'Falling beach levels risk to town'
dated 4 December 2006;
* Flyer 'Have your say on the bay';
* Consultation letter dated 30 November 2006;
* E-mail re: Old Colwyn Residents Association minutes of talk by
AJW, dated 14 January 2008;
* Proforma to review 4 design entries;
* Consultation letter dated 26 April 2006 and copy of addressees;
* Excerpt from Colwyn Bay Waterfront design brief;
* List of preliminary consultees dated December 2006

Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth/Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistef Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-Bost / E-Mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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Dear Info Regs Unit,

I see. Well I have not received any of the 3 letters you referred
to. Perhaps there was a fault with your mail merge program?

I would obviously like to be kept up-to-date/involved with these
consultations, so perhaps in the future the person responsible
could ensure any letter is actually physically produced by the mail
merge system? You also have my telephone / email / website etc.
contact details as alternative contact methods.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hunt

Dear Info Regs Unit,

Further to this matter of lack of any consultation with me, I refer
to meetings of the "Colwyn Bay Physical Regeneration Fund"

On 27th April 2006, it was stated that a company called Wavehill
were to undertake interviews about the regeneration project with
200 businesses and 20 voluntary organisations.

It would appear this is a different set of consultation interviews
to those referred to in your response above.

Wavehill then facilitated a meeting on the afternoon of 2nd June
2006 to discuss the project, and stated that most of these
interviews had been completed. Could you provide a list of those
businesses and organisations that were consulted, and the
results/findings of this process.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hunt

Dear Mr Hunt

A copy of the findings is too large to send electronically.

A hardcopy will therefore be sent to you in the post.

Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth / Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-bost / E-mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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Dear Mr O'Connor,

I acknowledge receipt of a copy of "Performance Measurement
Framework for the Bay Life Initiative Complete Data Analysis of
Business, Community and Voluntary Group, and Street Interviews"
prepared for CCBC by Wavehill Consulting.

However, this does not fulfill my request. There is no list of the
200 businesses and 20 voluntary organisations consulted that CCBC
evidently considered to be more important consultees to the
regeneration project than Victoria Pier.

From the summary of business sectors on page 4, it is noted that
the businesses considered far more worthy of input to the
regeneration consultation included 4 Hairdressers, a Landfill
Facility and a Crane Hire Company.

I can also see very significantly that 13 other Tourism Businesses
deemed far more important than Victoria Pier were consulted, and I
will be very interested indeed to see that 13 Tourism Businesses
even exist in Colwyn Bay.

I am still waiting an official statement from CCBC of what
consultation was carried out with Victoria Pier. You are reminded
this original request was made on the 7th January 2009.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hunt

Dear Mr Hunt

Thank you for your email below.

The report does not list those who took part nor is such a list held by
Conwy CBC.

This Unit has no remit to provide official statements on behalf of CCBC,
but rather deals with access to officially recorded information.

Information held regarding consultations has been provided to you on the
4/2/2009.

Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth/Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistef Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-Bost / E-Mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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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 Conwy Council's
handling of my FOI request 'Colwyn Bay Sea Defence Strategy /
Promenade Improvement Project & consultations with Victoria Pier?'.

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

You have NOT provided me with the information I requested.

If the information is not held by your department, you have a duty
to assist in identifying the department that does.

If there is no information, because no consultation has been
carried out, then make a formal statement to that effect.

If you fail yet again to deal with my information request in a
lawful manner, a further formal complaint will be made to the
Information Commissioners Office in addition to those 2 complaints
that are already being dealt with by them.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Hunt

Dear Mr Hunt

Your request for an internal review is acknowledged. It will be passed
to an appropriate officer who will respond to you in due course.

Uned Reoliadau Gwybodaeth/Information Regulations Unit
Cyngor Bwrdeistef Sirol CONWY County Borough Council
E-Bost / E-Mail: [Conwy Council request email]

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This FOI request is almost a year outstanding, and the internal
review 9 months outstanding.

Please comply with the Law by providing the information requested -
which is principally:

1) A list of the 200 businesses (including 13 tourism businesses, 4
hairdressers and a landfill site) that CCBC considered were MORE
IMPORTANT to be consulted about this project than Victoria Pier,
which is the largest building on the promenade by far, and largest
tourism building in the entire town.

2) A list of the 20 voluntary bodies that CCBC considered were MORE
IMPORTANT to be consulted about the project than the "Friends of
the Pier" society.

3) Confirmation of exactly what consultation WAS carried out with
Victoria Pier.

Steve Hunt

Unit FOI 585-09

Dear Mr Hunt

Thank you for your email dated 2/1/2010.

In response to your enquiries you are advised of the following;

This FOI request is almost a year outstanding, and the internal review 9
months outstanding.

Response; the initial request and subsequent request for an internal
review are not outstanding. The initial request dated 7/1/2009 was
responded to on the 4/2/2009. Supplementary enquiries were received and
responded to up to and including the 3/3/2009. Your request for an
internal review dated 3/3/2009 was responded to on the 27/3/2009.

Please comply with the Law by providing the information requested - which
is principally:

1) A list of the 200 businesses (including 13 tourism businesses, 4
hairdressers and a landfill site) that CCBC considered were MORE IMPORTANT
to be consulted about this project than Victoria Pier, which is the
largest building on the promenade by far, and largest

tourism building in the entire town.

Response; you were advised on the 3/3/2009 that no information is held in
relation to the above.

2) A list of the 20 voluntary bodies that CCBC considered were MORE
IMPORTANT to be consulted about the project than the "Friends of the
Pier" society.

Response; you were advised on the 3/3/2009 that no information is held in
relation to the above.

3) Confirmation of exactly what consultation WAS carried out with
Victoria Pier.

Response; you were advised on the 6/2/2009 of the consultations that were
carried out, which included reference to a mail merged letter sent out on
the 26/4/2006 to Mr Steve Hunt, Victoria Pier, Colwyn Bay.

As advised in my letter of the 27/3/2009 the enquiry and internal review
were considered to be concluded and if you were unhappy you were advised
to contact the Information Commissioner's Office. Contact details are
again provided below;

Information Commissioner's Office - Wales, Cambrian Buildings, Mount
Stuart Square Cardiff, CF10 5FL

In light of the above you are advised no further correspondence will
responded to on this particular request.

Yours sincerely

David Smith

Corporate Information & Complaints Manager

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Mr Smith,

Thank your for confirming that the 'Wavehill Consultation' was a
complete waste of tax-payers money, and has no merit whatsoever:

Since no-one can confirm what businesses were allegedly consulted,
then the results of that alleged consultation has no merit
whatsoever. Whilst in no way do I wish to belittle 4 hairdressers,
I'm sure everyone would agree they were hardly suitable consultees
for a multi-million pound sea defence project, given they have no
connection whatsoever to the sea-front, to environmental issues, to
transportation links or to the tourism industry. I have tried hard
to think of some consultees even more inappropriate than
hairdressers for such a project as this, but honestly I think you
have me beat on that one.

So to sum up then:

A) there is no evidence of any genuine consultation whatsoever
having taken place with any businesses or organisations that might
actually be affected by the project.

B) you have already confirmed the Council's method of assessing the
results of this very expensive charade was a bunch of people in a
room spending a few minutes over lunch "sticking post-it notes on a
chart"

C) you have also confirmed there are no recorded minutes of this
"sticking post-it notes meeting", therefore even that cannot be
regarded as an official exercise.

D) there was no consultation whatsoever with the Pier - the
so-called "mail-merge" letter is quite simply another of your lies;
you have provided no evidence whatsoever that it was ever sent.
Even if it had been true, one mail-merge letter hardly counts as
consultation, given the scale, scope and impact of this project.

So the whole exercise is nothing more than a total farce - as the
public have come to expect from Conwy County Borough Council.

Steve Hunt