Dear Sir or Madam,

It has come to my attention that the council may be considering
plans to demolish the East Oxford Community Centre and build a new
community centre at a different location.

1. Please let me know if there are any plans to demolish the
community centre or otherwise develop the land it currently stands
on

2. If the above is true, please provide all planning documents
relating to the development/demolition

3. If there are plans for a community centre at a new location,
please provide all planning documents for that development too

Yours faithfully,

Jonathan Leighton

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. I have forwarded it
to the relevant department for their reply.
You should hear from us before 11th April.

Adrienne Lingard
Deputy FOI Officer

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Dear Mr Leighton,

Thank you for your email and your request for information made under the
provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

I can confirm that at present the Council has no firm plans to demolish
the East Oxford Community Centre or otherwise develop the land it stands
on.

However, on the 19th March 2008 at Oxford City Council's East Area
Parliament Ridge Consultants gave a public presentation on the
feasibility of a number of potential developments in East Oxford. One of
the sites referred to in the presentation was the Community Centre. I
enclose copies of the slides that were used in that presentation.

I also include a document entitled "East Oxford Zero Carbon Projects",
which is a report commissioned by Oxford City Council to investigate how
the development potential of 3 sites in East Oxford could be realised by
re-providing the community facilities in improved, rationalised, zero
carbon modern buildings.

In considering the document produced by Ridge I must stress that this is
a feasibility study only, and that at this very early point in the
process no decision on the potential implementation of all or part of
these proposals has been made. Should any such scheme be proposed for
adoption the matter would need to be fully considered by Council members
and officers (no doubt involving consultation). Such plans would also,
of course, be subject to the planning process.

As you will observe, the parts of the document containing land
valuations have been redacted. This is because I consider the
information to be commercially sensitive and therefore exempt from
disclosure under the terms set out in section 43 of the Freedom of
Information Act.

As section 43 is what the FOIA calls a "qualified exemption" I am bound
by statue to set out the factors we have considered in coming to this
conclusion, a process known as the "public interest test", and to try to
explain the reasons why this particular data has been withheld.

The central tenet for the public interest in disclosing information is
the creation of transparency and accountability within Oxford City
Council in its decisions and actions, and to demonstrate the diligence
and integrity of our processes, which in turn would highlight or inform
issues of public debate.

However, in this case the public interest in maintaining this exemption
outweighs the public interest in disclosing information as the release
of commercially sensitive information before any potential property
negotiations with any developers have been concluded could hinder the
successful completion of this and other future contracts, and this would
work against the public interest.

I hope this assists, but if you disagree with any part of this response
you are entitled to ask Oxford City Council for an internal review of
the decision(s) made. You may do this by writing to The Monitoring
Officer, Oxford City Council, The Town Hall, Blue Boar Street, Oxford,
OX1 4EY. If, after the result of an internal review you are still not
satisfied you may ask the Information Commissioner to intervene on your
behalf. You may do this by writing to The Information Commissioner's
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

John Evans

Information Rights & ICT Project Manager

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