Information about the proposal to de-designate bathing at Walpole Bay

The request was successful.

Dear Thanet District Council,

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am seeking the
following pieces of information in relation to the Council's proposal to remove Walpole Bay from the list of designated bathing waters.

- All communication from the last 24 months regarding Walpole Bay
in until the date the information is released. Please include details of meetings, agendas, minutes, emails.

- The full application from Thanet District Council to DEFRA proposal and
supporting documents to de-designate.

Some parts of this request may be easier to answer than others, and
should this prove to be the case I would ask that you release
available data as soon as possible rather than hold up the entire
request.

I would prefer to receive this information electronically. If the
decision is made to withhold some of this data using exemptions in
Act, please inform me of that fact and cite the exemptions used.

If you need any clarification then please contact me at the email
listed. Under your section 16 duty to provide advice and assistance
I would expect you to contact me if you find this request
unmanageable in any way before the twentieth working day.

I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have
received this request, and I look forward to hearing from you in
the near future.

Yours faithfully,

Louise Oldfield

Amanda Buckingham, Thanet District Council

Ref No:62442 / 2637895
Subject:Walpole Bay Bathing Designation
 
Dear Ms Oldfield
 
Thank you for your communication of 18/03/2014 requesting information
about the proposal to remove Walpole Bay from the list of designated
bathing waters
 
Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and will be answered within twenty working days. 
 
If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact me.
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
 
 
 
 
Amanda Buckingham
Information Request Assessor
 

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Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

1 Attachment

Ref No: 62442 / 2637895

Subject:Walpole Bay Bathing Designation

 

Dear Ms Oldfield

 

Thank you for your communication received on 18th March in which you
requested information about Walpole Bay and the water quality sampling .

 

The information you requested is in 4 documents and due to their size has
initially given issues on sending the information. To resolve this I will
be sending this email followed shortly by three others with the additional
documents and hope that this can resolve the technical issues. These
documents do include the letter and supporting documents and plan sent to
Defra for their consideration.

 

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to: Information Request Assessor,
Thanet District Council, P O Box 9 Cecil Street, Margate Kent CT9 1XZ, or
send an email to [email address].

 

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Verrall

Landscape and Building Services Manager

 

 

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Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

1 Attachment

 
Ref No: 62442 / 2637895
Subject:Walpole Bay Bathing Designation
 
Dear Ms Oldfield
 
Thank you for your communication received on 18the March in which you
requested information about Walpole Bay and the water quality sampling .
 
The information you requested is in 4 documents and due to their size has
initially given issues on sending the information. To resolve this I will
be sending this email followed shortly by three others with the additional
documents and hope that this can resolve the technical issues. These
documents do include the letter and supporting documents and plan sent to
Defra for their consideration. This is the second email with attachment.
 
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to: Information Request Assessor,
Thanet District Council, P O Box 9 Cecil Street, Margate Kent CT9 1XZ, or
send an email to [email address].
 
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
 
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF
 
Yours sincerely,
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paul Verrall
Landscape and Building Services Manager
 
 

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Dear Paul Verrall,

I don't seem to have received the 4 subsequent folders of information as stated.

Thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Oldfield

Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

I am now away from the office until Tuesday 15 April. I will reply to your
email as soon as I can upon my return.

 

Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

Sorry Louise I saw your earlier email and thought it had worked. Did you receive any email from me with an attachment? As I mentioned below there were 4.
regards
Paul

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Dear Paul,

Thanks. I only received one email.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Oldfield

Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

Louise
I am trying to see how we can compact the information and resend it. I hope to be able to do this before the end of the week.
regards

Paul Verrall,
Parks & Coast Manager
Tel. 01843 577533
Council Offices, Cecil Street
Margate
Kent CT9 1XZ

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Dear Paul Verrall,

Thank you. But can't you upload the separate zip files as you described?
Wonder if pdf doc is smaller than tif?

Yours sincerely,

Louise Oldfield

Louise Oldfield left an annotation ()

TDC files were delivered by CD.
Here are the files to download:

TDC redacted consultation responses:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7f18Lg...

Walpole Bay 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7f18Lg...

Walpole Bay 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7f18Lg...

Walpole Bay 3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7f18Lg...

Louise Oldfield

Dear Paul Verrall,

Thank you for the information you delivered to me by CD.
Having now gone through the information I would like to raise a concern that not all the relevant information has been released.

1. In an email from you dated 21/02/14 there is a reference to an 'email from Sue to us both'. Yet there is no email from a Sue in the information released.

2. There is an email sent from the private address of Cllr Iris Johnston on 23/01/14 to Cllrs Clive Hart and Alan Poole. The main body of Cllr Johnston's email has been completely redacted. This is contrary to the advice issued to Thanet Council by the Information Commissioner who clarified that personal email accounts were subject to FOI requests if they were being used for council business. I would like to complain that this email should not have been redacted.

3. An email from Paula Harbridge on 26/11/13 and Mark Seed 21/11/13 refer to the council planning on contacting tourism stakeholders and publishing the news of the consultation to de-designate bathing at Walpole Bay in the December and then January issue of Tourism Matters. I have enquired of officers why this did not happen and have been informed that a decision was taken centrally not to send out the news to Tourism Matters. The information you have released has no reference to this decision being requested or agreed. I therefore believe that information has been withheld.

I would be grateful of a reply from you regarding these matters before referring them to the Information Commissioner for review.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Oldfield

Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

Good afternoon Louise,
I think these need a bit of my time to look into and regret that I am on leave as of the end of today until the 27th May.
I will ask this email to be added into the FOI request for the site and will do my best to respond on my return. I hope this acceptable.
Regards

Paul Verrall,
Parks & Coast Manager
Thanet District Council
Tel.01843 577533

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Louise Oldfield

Dear Paul,

Thanks. Yes, no problem.

Kind regards,

Louise Oldfield

Amanda Buckingham, Thanet District Council

 
20 May 2014
 
Ref No:62442/2637895
Subject:Walpole Bay Bathing Designation
 
Dear Ms Oldfield
 
I acknowledge receipt of your email of 15th May 2014.  I will return the
case file to Mr Verrall so that, together, we can look into the questions
you raise regarding the possibility of information that has not been
located and disclosed to you.  As you are aware, Mr Verrall is away from
the office now until 27th May 2014 so will be unable to start looking at
this until then.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Amanda Buckingham
Customer Contact Officer
 
 
 

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Paul Verrall, Thanet District Council

Ref No: 62442 / 2637895
Subject:Walpole Bay Bathing Designation
 
Dear Ms Oldfield,
 
Thank you for your further communication in which you requested
information about 3 matters arising from your initial request and the
documents provided. I am also grateful for your help over the phone to
clarify these matters and apolgise for the delay in replying sooner
 
The information you requested is enclosed.
1. With regard to the email mentioned in my email of 21 February I have
reviewed this with the Chief Executive's Personal Assistant and found that
although no copy was found in the Chief Executives email box we did find
the email I referred to in the email box for her Personal Assistant. The
email was from yourself to the Chief Executive on the 18 March and was
sent to me by her Personal Assistant. When she forwards an email sent into
the Chief Executive it appears on the heading to have come from the Chief
Executive, when on closer inspection it had come from her. I hope this
explains any issue over this and I am sorry we had missed this but hope
you understand the reason.
 
2. With regard to the email from Cllr Johnston and the complete redaction
of the message had me concerned and I believe with the extent of emails
that you may have referred to the wrong date. I have found an email from
Cllr Johnston using her personal email address which is dated 23 January
and sent to Cllrs Hart and Poole, however the content is very limited and
only the personal email addresses are redacted. I have however come across
an email from CllrJohnston sent from her personal email address to Cllr
Hart's personal email address. and dated 18 March. The large number of
redactions which appear as a large block are the large number of personal
email addresses which are included in the recipients. The email is
relating to ABC members.
 
3. I have looked at the email you refer to, which discusses the Tourism
Matters and a note of the decision which you believe is missing. I can
advise you that there is no written decision regarding this as the 4
initial consultations were made and considered before the Council was
prepared to go to a further stage. I do believe that if we had not had
full acceptance of our view on the issue we would perhaps not have
progressed as we did. The final of the initial 4 discussions was not
possible until early January and so missed the publication deadline which
was 4th December. Until then the Council wished to discuss the matter in a
way that would enable us to review and adapt our position without it being
misunderstood. By the time the next Tourism Matters was out the matter was
already in the public domain and on our web site.
 
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to: Information Request Assessor,
Thanet District Council, P O Box 9 Cecil Street, Margate Kent CT9 1XZ, or
send an email to [email address].
 
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
 
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF
 
Yours sincerely,
Paul Verrall
Community Asset Manager
 
 

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