Correspondence of Councillors prior to Sainsburys planning application

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Dear Mr Jones,
Thank you for your request dated 29 July, a copy of which is enclosed
below.

Your request appears that it is quite wide, particularly "Please also
include any meetings and correspondence with the Council's Officers". As
a requester is entitled to information rather than specifically documents
and it is not clear exactly what information you require, we have
understood your request to be for the following information:

Please find enclosed two attachments which include:
All correspondence sent to committee members relating to the application
site, from all objectors and responses and
all information held relating to meetings held by any members of the
committee, prior to the committee hearing.

Please note that many objections were sent to more than one councillor, as
a result we have tried to remove any duplication. I can confirm that the
information redacted is "personal data" as defined by the Data Protection
act 1998 and therefore exempt from disclosure in accordance with section
40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Although the City Council
aim to be transparent and accountable to the public, we must protect the
rights of individuals in accordance with the Data Protection Act. As a
result all personal data has been withheld.

Objections are not publically disclosed prior to the committee, instead
objections received by the planning team or forwarded by Councillors, are
counted, acknowledged and summarised in the committee report. All
objections forwarded to the planning team within a reasonable time would
have been considered within the committee report finalised on 9 July. The
addendum report was finalised 16 July and any further information received
by 20 July would have been considered within the amendment sheet. The
Public Forum process is separate to the objections that planning receive.
This process allows individuals to submit a formal statement either in
support or against the application that must be received by 12 noon the
day before committee. Members and planning officers receive this
information the same day.

This response should answer your request in full, however if you are not
satisfied with this response or wish to lodge an appeal against any
exemptions that may have been applied, you can do so by writing to the
Data Protection Officer at Bristol City Council Legal Services, The
Council House, College Green, Bristol, or [1][Bristol City Council request email]. Details
of the complaints procedure can be found at
[2]http://www.bristol.gov.uk/complaints.

If, after you have exhausted the council’s complaints procedure, you are
still not satisfied with the response you have received you have the right
to complain to the Information Commissioner, details of your right to
complain can be found at [3]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx

Copyright notice
The provision of information by Bristol City Council under this scheme
does not imply a right to reproduce or commercially exploit such
information without the Council's express prior written permission.
Reproduction or commercial exploitation of materials supplied under this
scheme without the express permission of Bristol City Council may be an
infringement of copyright.
The Council is unable to grant permission to reproduce or re-use any
material accessed through this scheme that is the property of third
parties. Permission to reproduce or re-use such material must be obtained
from the copyright holders.

Yours sincerely
For Head of Legal Services
Stephen McNamara

Request of G Jones

"Please could you provide correspondence and minutes of all meetings that
the eight Councillors had prior to the planning application meeting, with
each other or other interested parties of the application, in relation to
the Sainsburys application at Ashton Gate.

Please also include any meetings and correspondence with the Council's
Officers".

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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Bristol City Council request email]
2. http://www.bristol.gov.uk/complaints
3. http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx

Mr Jones,

Please see the attached correspondence with the Information Commissioner's
Office with regards to your complaint to them.

I apologise that your request for an internal review was misunderstood as
a request to review the exemption applied and not a review of the
interpretation of your original request, and apologise that it took so
long for this to happen - it was an oversight on our part and due in part
to the number of requests that we had from different individuals for
slightly different aspects of the same information, at the same time as
your request and review.

As you can see from the responses to the Information Commissioner's
Office;

On re-considering your request there were only 3 e-mails that would have
been disclosed to you initially, that weren't - those are attached to the
ICO response.

We have reconsidered your request under the Environmental Information
Regulations and the information disclosed would have been the same, with
the addition of the 3 e-mails.

Unfortunately your mention of the Tesco Retail Impact Report was
overlooked, and I can confirm that the Tesco Retail Impact Report was
disclosed to Cllr Simon Rayner on 19th July 2010. The Information
Commissioner's Office have interpreted this part of the request as a
request for a copy of the report itself, if this is the case, please can
you confirm that you require a copy and I will send it to you, please
could you advise where you would like it sent to?

I would like to add that there may have been further meetings or
discussions between the 8 Councillors specified by Mr Jones and
between Officers and the 8 Councillors, however they may not have resulted
in minutes or notes being taken or they may have taken the form of a
conversation, in which it was not considered necessary to take notes. You
have now received all of the notes/minutes correspondence relating to the
Sainsbury's planning application, prior to the application meeting that we
hold.

I look forward to hearing from you with regard to the report.

Regards
Helena Ashton
Data Protection Officer
On behalf of Head of Legal Services

>>> Geoff Jones <[FOI #42899 email]> 31/08/10 18:37
>>>
Dear Bristol City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Bristol City
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Correspondence of Councillors
prior to Sainsburys planning application'.

The request for information was interpreted in a manner to evade
the core information requested.

The information I was requesting was:

Please provide all correspondence and minutes of all meetings that
the eight Councillors had prior to the planning application
meeting, with each other or other interested parties of the
application, in relation to the Sainsburys application at Ashton
Gate

For clarity:
If Councillors A,B and C had a meeting and the application was
discussed then a copy of the minutes should be provided.
If Councillor X, Y and Z have requested additional information or
clarity on any of the application from the Officer's then the
request and response should be provided.
If Councillors A and B have exchanged emails regarding the
application then copies of the emails should be provided.
If any Councillors have had correspondence with Sainsburys or any
Objectors or Supporters or any other connected party then copies of
that correspondence should be provided.

When I wrote "Please also include any meetings and correspondence
with the Council's Officers". I meant meetings and correspondence
between the 8 Councillors and the Officers.

If any or all of the Councillors had a meeting with any of the
Officers regarding the application, then a copy of the minutes
should be provided.

Please could you clarify if the response you have provided includes
all of the above as clarified in the above response. Could you also
confirm that no other further documentation such as the independent
Tesco retail impact report was provided to any of the Councillors.

I added the above as it is unclear whether the response I
previously gave to the Council's reply was going to be answered as
no acknowledgement has been received.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:

[1]http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

Yours faithfully,

Geoff Jones

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References

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