Require correspondence between Islington Council and potential buyers of the old Ashmount School site

I am slightly surprised by the way Islington responded to the original request , now under internal review.

The Ashmount Site is not for sale. It might be in the future. The site cannot be sold unless Ashmount vacates it. There is a plan to move Ashmount School to the site of a former, now derelict, community centre at Crouch Hill. As the new site is Metropolitan Open Land, the consent of the Mayor of London is required. It has not yet been established whether the Mayor is minded to give consent. Should the Mayor give initial consent, detailed plans for the new building have to go through Islington Planning, there is no timescale for this known yet. The council have already been working on this project for five years.

Assuming planning is agreed by Islington the final proposal has to go back to the Mayor of London for final approval and to the Government Office for London for formal approval.

Only then the processes for disposal of the current site could start. This would involve a decision by the council as to what the best use of the site would be, which might be a political one, followed by drawing up a planning brief, so that the putative buyer would know what they were getting. Again there is no timetable for this yet. And none can begin to be set until the Mayor. There would also have to be a date for vacant possession.

So it seems to me that while it is entirely likely that putative buyers may have approached the council to be kept on the mailing list as it were, it is difficult to see what other information the council could possibly have.

Perhaps they are concerned that disclosing the level of interest expressed in the site might affect a future bidding process. But then they would all have predated the credit crunch anyway.

Mr Barry,

As this is not your FOI request, please can you stop speculating and let Islington Council do their job of conducting the Internal Review and responding to my original request.

Simon Kloot

I was actually being critical of Islington's initial response to your enquiry. I believed that they could. and should, have been more forthcoming. This might have saved the time and expense of an internal review.

I also sought to have been of assistance by providing information that, once we have Islington's final response, might help in finding somewhere else that you might find the information, or assist in getting a better way of wording the request.

Perhaps I may have misunderstood the way you phrased your response to my annotation but it seemed to me inconsistent with the philosophy of this site. which is about collaboration and mutual assistance and does not regard any particular request as the exclusive property of the originator.

David, my response was because you have a conflict of interest, i.e. you are on the board of governors of Ashmount School.

I fear you are misinformed. Being on the Board of Governors of Ashmount School does not give me a conflict of interest in this matter, as your FOI enquiry is addressed to Islington Council.

Moreover my comments in assistance of your FOI were based on publically available information that I was well aware of because of discussions that took place at Governing Body during the public part of various meetings, and at public meetings held by Islington Council.

I can see that you feel very proprietorial about this FOI. However this site is a resource for others beside yourself. And in my own, very minor way I try to add to that.

David, you said:

"I fear you are misinformed. Being on the Board of Governors of Ashmount School does not give me a conflict of interest in this matter, as your FOI enquiry is addressed to Islington Council."

However it is in your interests that the school is moved and I believe that you also have close ties with Greg Foxsmith, the instigator in this matter.

You also earlier said:

"So it seems to me that while it is entirely likely that putative buyers may have approached the council to be kept on the mailing list as it were, it is difficult to see what other information the council could possibly have."

I think this is your attempt to whitewash over things and frustrate my request for internal review. Why would you be concerned whether the council does or does not hold other information.

If you continue to frustrate my FOI requests, I will simply issue different requests until the information I am seeking is provided.

This is my final word on the subject.

I am afraid this is getting silly.

You really cannot make wild accusations in a public forum and not expect a response. You accuse me of frustrating your FOI requests, but I have nothing to do with how Islington Council carries out any of its functions, anymore, I imagine, than you do. Indeed, a chance would be a fine thing.

Also I am not sure why it would matter if I did have "close ties" with Greg Foxsmith. Of course I know Mr Foxsmith who is one of our (yours and mine) liberal democrat ward councillors and a parent of a child at Ashmount School. But I also know Catherine West the leader of the Labour opposition on Islington, and a parent at Ashmount. I also know our local labour MP Jeremy Corbin. (a former parent at Ashmount) But "close ties" ?

Hardly.

Finally I take grave exception to your statement that it is in my interests that the school is moved. I have no personal interest, financial or otherwise in this matter. If I had I would have declared it, as required of all school Governors by law.

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Alex - WhatDoTheyKnow volunteer

Thank you for concluding the Internal Review in our favour.

I do hope Islington Council will be more forthcoming with information for our campaign group (The Ashmount Site Action Group) in future.