Vacant/Recently Vacant Commercial Properties owned by Corby Borough Council

Kingstone Murombedzi made this Freedom of Information request to Corby Borough Council

The request was partially successful.

From: Kingstone Murombedzi

6 July 2010

Dear Corby Borough Council,
Please can you provide me with the following information under the
Freedom Of Information Act 2000:-
ALL properties owned and/or administered by Corby Borough
Council/CB Property meeting any of the following criteria:
(1) property is currently vacant
(2) property has been vacant for at least 6 months in the last 2
years
(3) property has a total area not exceeding 500 square metres

For all the property meeting the said criteria please provide the
following information:
(a) the dates during which the property has been vacant
(b) whether any interest to rent the property has been expressed:
if so please indicate dates(s) of expression of interest and
outcome
(c) whether the property is due to be occupied in the near future.
(d) the market rental price for the property including the required
rental deposit
(e) the use for which the property is intended

Yours faithfully,

Kingstone Murombedzi

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

7 July 2010

Attachment 89130 foi a06 Acknowledgement letter re receipt of request.doc
70K Download View as HTML

Dear Kingstone,

Please see attached.

Regards

Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council
[1]Mailto:[email address]
Telephone: 01536 464038
Fax: 01536 464109

Document: 103759/89132

Confidentiality Statement/Legal Disclaimer

This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended for the exclusive use
of the addressee. It may contain information which is legally privileged,
confidential and exempt from disclosure. Any views or opinions expressed
in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of Corby Borough Council
and are not to be relied upon without subsequent written confirmation by
an authorised representative. If you are not the addressee any disclosure,
reproduction, distribution, forwarding or other dissemination or use is
strictly prohibited.

If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk by telephone on +44 (0) 1536
464088 or e-mail [email address].

Corby Borough Council, Deene House, New Post Office Square, Corby,
Northants, NN17 1GD. Telephone +44 (0) 1536 464000

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

15 July 2010

Attachment 89739 foi b03 Letter requesting clarification of request made.doc
70K Download View as HTML

Dear Kingstone,

After looking at your request, we require some further clarification
before we can proceed further. Please see the attached letter for more
details.

Regards

Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council
[1]Mailto:[email address]
Telephone: 01536 464038
Fax: 01536 464109

Document: 103759/89740

Confidentiality Statement/Legal Disclaimer

This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended for the exclusive use
of the addressee. It may contain information which is legally privileged,
confidential and exempt from disclosure. Any views or opinions expressed
in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of Corby Borough Council
and are not to be relied upon without subsequent written confirmation by
an authorised representative. If you are not the addressee any disclosure,
reproduction, distribution, forwarding or other dissemination or use is
strictly prohibited.

If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk by telephone on +44 (0) 1536
464088 or e-mail [email address].

Corby Borough Council, Deene House, New Post Office Square, Corby,
Northants, NN17 1GD. Telephone +44 (0) 1536 464000

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Link to this

From: Kingstone Murombedzi

15 July 2010

Dear Louise McAspurren,

Thank you for your letter.

The section that you have queried refers to a situation where the
following have happenned:
- an individual, group or organisation has expressed interest to
view the property and;
- such a viewing has taken place and;
- the individual, group or organisation has expressed an intention
to rent the property

I hope this clarifies my request.

Yours sincerely,

Kingstone Murombedzi

Link to this

From: Kingstone Murombedzi

19 July 2010

Dear Louise McAspurren,
I have already responded to your request for a clarification. I
therefore do not understand why I am receiving a second email
making the same request.

Yours sincerely,

Kingstone Murombedzi

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

19 July 2010

Dear Kingstone,

Thank you for your clarification to this request (ref 103759) which you sent after working hours on 15 July 2010, and so we received on 16 July 2010. The Council has only sent you one email requesting clarification with regard to this request, although it had previously asked you to clarify another request (ref 103760).

I trust this has helped clarify the matter.

Regards,

Louise McAspurren
RTB and FOI Officer

Working Monday to Thursday

show quoted sections

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

11 August 2010

Attachment 91008 foi g03 Letter to applicant releasing part info and refusing other part.doc
79K Download View as HTML

Attachment 91009 K Murombedzi vacant units FOI.xls
23K Download View as HTML

Attachment How to complain comment or compliment CBC.pdf
214K Download View as HTML

Dear Kingstone,

Please find attached response to your request.

Regards

Louise McAspurren

[1]Mailto:[email address]
Telephone: 01536 464038
Fax: 01536 464109

Document: 103759/091960

Confidentiality Statement/Legal Disclaimer

This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended for the exclusive use
of the addressee. It may contain information which is legally privileged,
confidential and exempt from disclosure. Any views or opinions expressed
in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of Corby Borough Council
and are not to be relied upon without subsequent written confirmation by
an authorised representative. If you are not the addressee any disclosure,
reproduction, distribution, forwarding or other dissemination or use is
strictly prohibited.

If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk by telephone on +44 (0) 1536
464088 or e-mail [email address].

Corby Borough Council, Deene House, New Post Office Square, Corby,
Northants, NN17 1GD. Telephone +44 (0) 1536 464000

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Link to this

From: Kingstone Murombedzi

31 August 2010

Dear Corby Borough Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Corby Borough
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Vacant/Recently Vacant
Commercial Properties owned by Corby Borough Council'.

I do not agree with your decision to withhold information as well
as the arguments that you have put forward on:
1) Expressions of interest in renting the properties
2) Market rental price for the properties

In the matter relating to market rental price, you state that this
information is ‘reasonably accessible to the applicant’ and
therefore section 21 exempts you from releasing it. You have
further provided a web link to ‘prove’ your point. However, this
link only shows the guide market prices of only 6 properties yet
the spreadsheet you have provided me has a list of 19 properties.
Of the 6 properties shown on the link only a handful relate to the
properties in question. This clearly means that more than 80% of
the requested information is NOT ‘reasonably accessible’ as you
state. I therefore believe it is incorrect for you try and use
Section 21 to withhold this information.

It should also be noted that this link appears to have just been
added to your website suggesting that over the past two years, this
data has not been readily available. I have also tracked this link
over the past month and it does not appear to get updated
frequently as you suggest. The header on the page clearly states
that this is information about ‘Commercial Properties available to
let’. If you refer to the parameters of my request, you will note
that it covers a lot more than ‘available to let’ properties. Let
me also clarify that ‘vacant properties’ does not necessarily refer
to ‘available to let properties’! This makes your argument about
the information being ‘reasonably accessible’ even more
inappropriate.

I shall now move on to the matter of expressions of interest in
renting the properties. Firstly I find it rather inconceivable that
it is likely to take the council over 18 hours (about 2 full
working days) to retrieve records produce a spreadsheet with 19
rows and 6 columns. I find it baffling that this job is also
charged at £25 per hour! I think it is fair that a detailed
breakdown of this job be provided for analysis by an independent
body.

My view is that if council records are kept correctly, it is
possible to provide information on the expressions of interest in
the said properties and the outcomes in a very short space of time.
If this is not possible then surely the record keeping system in
this department needs to be investigated. I therefore cannot accept
the attempt to use Section 12 to withhold this information unless
you justify that the cost indeed ‘exceeds the appropriate cost
limit as set down by legislation’ Having also looked through
section 12, I have not been able to find a specific figure about
the 'cost limit'. This may be an oversight on my part so I kindly
request you explain how you arrive at your figures.

I also have to say that it is increasingly appearing that there is
a highly cunning effort by officers in the relevant department to
ensure that certain information is not released. This is just
unacceptable and the council should not continue to frustrate
legitimate requests for information under the Freedom of
Information Act If this continues, I will not hesitate to involve
external regulatory and statutory bodies in this matter.

Thanks and regrads

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

Yours faithfully,

Kingstone Murombedzi

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

2 September 2010

Attachment 93704 Internal Review acknowledgement of receipt of request.doc
69K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Murombedzi,

Please see attached.

Regards

Louise McAspurren

[1]Mailto:[email address]
Telephone: 01536 464038
Fax: 01536 464109

Document: 103759/093705

Confidentiality Statement/Legal Disclaimer

This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended for the exclusive use
of the addressee. It may contain information which is legally privileged,
confidential and exempt from disclosure. Any views or opinions expressed
in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of Corby Borough Council
and are not to be relied upon without subsequent written confirmation by
an authorised representative. If you are not the addressee any disclosure,
reproduction, distribution, forwarding or other dissemination or use is
strictly prohibited.

If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk by telephone on +44 (0) 1536
464088 or e-mail [email address].

Corby Borough Council, Deene House, New Post Office Square, Corby,
Northants, NN17 1GD. Telephone +44 (0) 1536 464000

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

30 September 2010

Attachment 95565 Internal Review Decision.doc
77K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Murombedzi,

Please see attached letter, sent on behalf of Mr Simon Aley.

Regards

Louise McAspurren

[1]Mailto:[email address]
Telephone: 01536 464038
Fax: 01536 464109

Document: 103759/095640

Confidentiality Statement/Legal Disclaimer

This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended for the exclusive use
of the addressee. It may contain information which is legally privileged,
confidential and exempt from disclosure. Any views or opinions expressed
in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of Corby Borough Council
and are not to be relied upon without subsequent written confirmation by
an authorised representative. If you are not the addressee any disclosure,
reproduction, distribution, forwarding or other dissemination or use is
strictly prohibited.

If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk by telephone on +44 (0) 1536
464088 or e-mail [email address].

Corby Borough Council, Deene House, New Post Office Square, Corby,
Northants, NN17 1GD. Telephone +44 (0) 1536 464000

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Link to this

From: Louise McAspurren
Corby Borough Council

30 September 2010

Attachment 95565 Internal Review Decision.doc
76K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Murombedzi,

Please see attached letter, sent on behalf of Mr Simon Aley.

(With apologies that the previous email contained a letter marked 'DRAFT'-
this has now been removed but the letter remains the same otherwise).

Regards

Louise McAspurren

[1]Mailto:[email address]
Telephone: 01536 464038
Fax: 01536 464109

Document: 103759/095640

Confidentiality Statement/Legal Disclaimer

This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended for the exclusive use
of the addressee. It may contain information which is legally privileged,
confidential and exempt from disclosure. Any views or opinions expressed
in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of Corby Borough Council
and are not to be relied upon without subsequent written confirmation by
an authorised representative. If you are not the addressee any disclosure,
reproduction, distribution, forwarding or other dissemination or use is
strictly prohibited.

If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) Help Desk by telephone on +44 (0) 1536
464088 or e-mail [email address].

Corby Borough Council, Deene House, New Post Office Square, Corby,
Northants, NN17 1GD. Telephone +44 (0) 1536 464000

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Link to this

paul palmer left an annotation (21 December 2010)

Kingstone,

Maybe if you were more honest and open, and explained why you wanted the information, then the local authority would be more inclined to help you.

Link to this

Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Corby Borough Council only: