Dear Sir or Madam,

Please could you send me a list of all the documents containing
authorisations or special directions by the Secretary of State
regarding traffic signs and road markings in the City of Cambridge
that are still in force.

For each document, I would like to know:

1: the approximate date the authorisations and special directions
were made,

2: if possible, a description of the area covered by the document,

3: enough information to allow me to request a copy of the document
in question.

The restriction to Cambridge need not be absolute -- if it is
easier for you to supply a list covering a wider area, that will be
acceptable.

Yours faithfully,

Ben Harris

Dear Mr Harris

Your Request for Information, REF: P0004729

Thank you for your recent request which I am dealing with. To enable me to provide you with the correct information, please can you confirm that you are happy for me to search from January 2003 which is when the current Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions came in to force? Also, would you like to me send you a copy of any authorisation that I find?

Please note that if I do not receive appropriate clarification of your information requirements within three months from the date of this email, then I will consider your request closed. If you wish to discuss any of the above, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number P0004729 in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Judith Tracey

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Dear Ms Tracey,

My Request for Information, REF: P0004729

I'm afraid that many of the authorisations I'm interested in would
predate 2003, since they would relate to signs that have been in
place at least since 1994. Thus, if any older authorisations are
still in force, I'd like to know about them. If older
authorisations are certain to have been revoked, then obviously
there's no need to search them. If finding all in-force
authorisations is likely to be prohibitively expensive, then I
suspect that limiting it to those post-dating the 1981 Regulations
will be adequate.

I'll probably be asking for copies of some of the authorisations
eventually, so if it's convenient for you to send me electronic
copies of any or all of them, that will save time.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Harris

Dear Mr Harris

Thank you for your email.

I am pleased to inform you that our electronic databases listing the authorisations that we have issued since 1992 - October 2008 have now been placed on our website; this was in response to a previous FOI request. You will be able to search for authorisations that have been issued to Cambridge using this link - http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2008... .

We do not keep electronic copies of the actual signed authorisation. If you wish to see copies of what has been signed, I can retrieve the file from our storage facility and scan them in so that they can be emailed to you.

I can check our records for authorisations that have been issued to Cambridge since October to today's date, and provide you with this information.

We have paper records for authorisations issued prior to 1992. As you can probably imagine these are quite large and it will be a case of searching page by page - is there a particular type of sign that you are interested in, e.g. parking? If you are able to narrow the search, it will be easier for me to compile the information that you are looking for.

Please note that if I do not receive appropriate clarification of your information requirements within three months from the date of this email, then I will consider your request closed. If you wish to discuss any of the above, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number P0004729 in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Ms Tracey,

Thank you for the link to the on-line lists of authorisations.
These cover most of what I wanted. I don't think I need the last
month's authorisations in any case. One thing that does seem to be
missing is any indication of whether any authorisations have been
revoked. Does this ever happen?

As for the earlier authorisations, the ones I'm most interested in
are those for signs and markings associated with cycle lanes and
tracks. I doubt there are many (if any) of them, but this may not
help.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Harris

Dear Ms Tracey,

My Request for Information, REF: P0004729

Thank you for the link to the on-line lists of authorisations.
These cover most of what I wanted. I don't think I need the last
month's authorisations in any case. One thing that does seem to be
missing is any indication of whether any authorisations have been
revoked. Does this ever happen?

As for the earlier authorisations, the ones I'm most interested in
are those for signs and markings associated with cycle lanes and
tracks. I doubt there are many (if any) of them, but this may not
help.

Apologies if you get two copies of this -- I forgot the reference
number on the first one.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Harris

Dear Mr Harris

Thank you for your email and I am glad that the databases are providing you with the information you require. When you ask if authorisations are ever revoked the answer is no, I am not aware of any situation where this has happened. We do issue time- limited authorisations which do expire and which may not be re-newed; there is a column to show the date of expiry if applicable in the databases.

Are you happy for me to log your FOI request as a list of authorisations issued to Cambridge City Council for traffic signs and road markings associated with cycle lanes and tracks since 1984 to 1991 incl? If you could confirm that you are content with this, I will send you the official acknowledgement and start searching!

Kind regards

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Mr Harris

YOUR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST, REF: F0004729

Thank you for your request for copies of specific traffic sign authorisations that have been issued to Cambridgeshire County Council. Your request was received in this Division on 2 December and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me at the address shown below. Please remember to quote the reference number F0004729 in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Mr Harris

As you are aware I am collating the copies of authorisations for various traffic signing schemes that you have requested. I have had a problem with the one for the bus lane in A1307 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge. The spreadsheet on the website for 1998 was corrupt and I was unable to access it. I have now had it replaced with one that can be viewed but I have not been able to find the record that you want.

Please could you check the website and give me the number of the line that the record is entered on? The link is -
http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2008... . Once I have this information I can then trace the appropriate file.

Kind regards

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Ms Tracey,

Apologies -- the date should have been 1997 rather than 1998. The
new annexb.xls has readable dates and says that the request was
received 04-Feb-97 and authorised 11-Feb-97. I hope this helps.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Harris

Dear Mr Harris

Thanks very much for the quick reply, I can now order the papers and hope to get them all to you very shortly.

Kind regards

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Mr Harris

YOUR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST, REF: F0004729

I am just waiting for one document to be sent to me from our Archive branch and then I will be ready to send you what you have requested. I can not do this electronically due to the size of some of the plans - please can you provide a postal address?

Kind regards

Judith Tracey

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Dear Ms Tracey,

Thank you. You can send paper documents to:

Ben Harris, [address redacted], [address redacted]

Yours sincerely,

Ben Harris

Ben, thank you for this.

I have still not received the final authorisation that I am waiting for; this is the one for the part time plates with D951 at Burleigh Street and Fitzroy Street. I have telephoned the Archive office but there is no one there now until 5th January.

Due to the holiday season and irregular post deliveries, are you happy for me to send the papers that I have now so that you will receive them before the deadline for responding to FOI requests? Obviously, as soon as I receive the last set I will post them to you immediately.

Kind regards

Judith

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Ben

I have just received the final authorisation and have posted my reply to you.

Kind regards

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Ms Tracey,

My Request for Information, REF: P0004729

Thank you. The authorisations arrived today, and are entirely
satisfactory. I'd just like to remind you that you said you'd tell
me whether there were any authorisations issued for cycle lanes or
cycle tracks in Cambridge between 1984 and 1991 inclusive and I
don't seem to have an answer to this yet.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Harris

Dear Mr Harris

Thank you for your email.

I had forgotten about the earlier authorisations; the reason being that I received a second FOI request which you sent to the FOI Request Team and, although you had given the reference number 4729, they had logged it on as a new request. As you had provided a list of the authorisations that you were interested in, I had assumed that this was all the information you required and I merged the two request records together. I do apologise for the misunderstanding but I hope you can appreciate how this came about.

I have this morning checked our books and have found authorisation records which start from 12 November 1970 -

The first entry for Cambridge, cycle related, is in 1980 and this is for cycleway signing Trumpington Road, Huntingdon Road and Downing Street

In the 1984 book there is an entry for cycle facilities at The Fen, Causeway, Cambridge

Finally in 1989, the entry reads cycle facility on the A1307/A45 Girton, Cambridgeshrie

Would you like to me to get copies of these for you? I know that our Archive office is closed until 5 January but I can email them and they have responded quickly in the past so, if they can locate the papers, I should be able to send them to you during the week of 12 January. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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Dear Ms Tracey,My Request for Information, REF: P0004729Thank you
for searching your records for me and in particular for goingback
before 1984. The 1980 authorisation sounds like one I was
particularlylooking for, and I hadn't expected it to be anything
like that old.Could you please send me copies of all three of those
authorisations? WhileThe Fen Causeway and Girton Interchange aren't
of immediate interest to me,I'll probably want them
eventually.Yours sincerely,Ben Harris

Dear Mr Harris

Thanks you for your email. It is my first day in the office this year hence the slight delay in replying. I will send an email to our Archive branch and will request all of these early papers and will send them to you as soon as possible.

Kind regards

Judith Tracey
Traffic Signs Policy Branch
Department for Transport
2/08 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

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