Planning Data

The request was partially successful.

Dear Lewisham Borough Council,

We would like the following information relating to planning applications information ideally in a CSV file”

"Property Address" " Application Number" "Status" "Proposal"

We do not need the supporting documents, comments, etc.

We are currently building a free service that incorporates a wide-range of property specific information for homeowners in one place. We have already integrated with Land Registry, Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey, VOA, ONS, Data.gov.uk, Historic England, etc. This information would be very useful for our users, so I hope that you can locate it for me.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Wilde

Foi, Customer, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Wilde, ,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Thank you for your recent request for information. This is to inform you that we are unable to answer your request based on the details you have provided. To assist us in proceeding with your request please can you provide us with further information.

Please can you supply us with your full name or at least your first initial and surname. We are required to obtain a full name or initials of a requester's name before we can process requests as per the Information Commissioner's Office guidance (please see following link):

http://ico.org.uk/~/media/documents/libr...

After receiving further clarification from you, your request will be acknowledged and considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any statutory exemptions.

Many thanks and kind regards

Anthony McKay
Corporate Complaints, Casework and Information Governance Team

Dear Anthony

Thank you for coming back to me so quickly. My initial is "T".

Yours sincerely,

Mr Wilde

Foi, Customer, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Wilde,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Environmental Information Regulations 2004
Reference No: 415967

We sincerely apologise for the delay in acknowledging your request. We have recently undergone a restructure and as a result, are experiencing some delays with regard to our information requests.

Thank you for your recent request. Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any
exemptions/exceptions. Where consideration is being given to exemptions/exceptions, the 20 working day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable depending on the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with your request at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of the information requested where the request exceeds the statutory limit or where disbursements exceed £10. In such cases you will be informed in writing and your request will be suspended until we receive payment from you or your request is modified and/or reduced.

Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred. If we are unable to provide you with the information requested we will notify you of this together with the reason(s) why and details of how you may appeal (if appropriate). Please note that the directorate team may contact you for further information where we believe that the request is not significantly clear for us to respond fully.

Kind Regards,

Corporate Complaints and Casework Team

Foi, Customer, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Wilde,

 

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

Thank you for your recent request for information. This is to inform you
that we are unable to answer your request based on the details you have
provided. To assist us in proceeding with your request, please could you
provide us with further information.

 

Please clarify what you are referring to by the below.

 

"Property Address" " Application Number" "Status" "Proposal"

Are you asking for the entire planning register or something else?

 

After receiving clarification from you, your request will be acknowledged
and considered and you will receive a response within the statutory
timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any statutory
exemptions.

 

Many thanks and kind regards

 

Anthony McKay

Corporate Information Team

 

 

Dear Anthony

Thank you for your swift reply, I apologise for my own delay I've been off this last week. As far back as possible would be great. We are finding several councils have 1977 as a benchmark for digitised planning applications however longer or as much as you have would be fantastic.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Wilde

Hatch, Julie, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Wilde

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000/ Environmental Information Regulations 2004

 

Thank you for your request for information, which I received on 1 September 2017 concerning planning services.  Please note that I am treating this as a request under the terms of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

 

We would like the following information relating to planning applications
information ideally in a CSV file”

"Property Address" " Application Number" "Status" "Proposal"

We do not need the supporting documents, comments, etc.

 

We are currently building a free service that incorporates a wide-range of
property specific information for homeowners in one place. We have already
integrated with Land Registry, Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey, VOA, ONS,
Data.gov.uk, Historic England, etc. This information would be very useful
for our users, so I hope that you can locate it for me.

 

I can confirm that we have an online system that starts from early 2000,
which can be found on the following link

[1]http://planning.lewisham.gov.uk/online-a...

 

Any applications before this time would have to be retrieved manually and
this would take over 18 hours as the information is stored in a number of
different places.  The Council would have to employ a consultant to come
in to do this work, thus incurring additional costs.

 

Therefore the Council considers this part of your request as manifestly
unreasonable and applies regulation 12(4)(b) to your request:

 

12.—(1) Subject to paragraphs (2), (3) and (9), a public authority may
refuse to disclose environmental information requested if—

(a)an exception to disclosure applies under paragraphs (4) or (5); and

(b)in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in
maintaining the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosing the
information.

(2) A public authority shall apply a presumption in favour of disclosure.

(3) To the extent that the information requested includes personal data of
which the applicant is not the data subject, the personal data shall not
be disclosed otherwise than in accordance with regulation 13.

(4) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), a public authority may refuse to
disclose information to the extent that—

(a)it does not hold that information when an applicant’s request is
received;

(b)the request for information is manifestly unreasonable;

(c)the request for information is formulated in too general a manner and
the public authority has complied with regulation 9;

(d)the request relates to material which is still in the course of
completion, to unfinished documents or to incomplete data; or

(e)the request involves the disclosure of internal communications.

We consider that the public interest test favours the application of this
regulation because although it may be helpful for the public to have this
information, the diversion of resources and the costs involved in
providing would be highly burdensome on the Council and therefore this
favours non -disclosure.

 

I hope that the information I have provided is helpful to you.

 

You are free to use the information provided for your own purposes,
including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes
of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication,
requires the permission of the copyright holder. You may apply for
permission to re-use this information by submitting a request to
[2][email address]

 

You have a right of appeal against this response which you can exercise by
writing to– Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team,
1st floor Town Hall Chambers, Catford, London. SE6 4RU. Or at:
[3][email address]

 

This must be requested within 40 working days of the date of this
response.

 

If you remain dissatisfied after receiving this decision, you then also
have a further right of appeal, which you can make in writing, stating
your reasons to the regulating body, the Information Commissioner's
Office.

Contact details: [4]http://www.ico.gov.uk/ or 0303 123 1113 or Wycliffe
House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Julie Hatch

Senior Customer Resolutions Officer

Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team

Email:[email address]

 

 

 

 

[5]Waste Changes London Borough of Lewisham

Dear Julie,

Thank you for the response and the information provided. I have been on the councils planning portal to try to obtain planning data however it would appear that it is too general a search to be fulfilled. What we would like if possible is a mass export as a CSV file of all the planning data for all the properties within the authority for as long as possible. I understand from your email in Lewisham this is early 2000. We do not need any of the associated documents etc, just the Property Address, Date of Application, Application Number, Status and the proposal.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Wilde

Hatch, Julie, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Wilde

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry for the delay in responding.

The planning service have advised me that they are unable to provide a CSV file with the information that you have requested and that you would need to narrow your search to a monthly basis to extract the information.

Unfortunately this is the only way to extract the information that you require. Due to the officer time this would involve, it would be considered an unreasonable burden on our resources when the information is publicly available already.

I am sorry that I am not able to help further with your request.

Kind Regards

Julie Hatch
Senior Customer Resolution Officer
Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team
5th Floor Laurence House
Catford, SE6 4RU
[email address]
0208 314 6131

Dear Julie,

Thank you for your swift response and the information provided. I apologise for my delay in responding. I'm really surprised that the user access to the planning portal does not allow the council to access their entire planning portal database. I've had responses from several councils who have provided the data either in one mass export from the system or one who has done it decade by decade. Could you please double check this for me? I appreciate it is going above and beyond but it would take the council ten minutes to download (If this is possible) rather than and entire week of scrapping by us.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Wilde

Hatch, Julie, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Wilde

Thank you for your email.

I have re-checked with our planning section and unfortunately they have confirmed that out systems do not allow us to do a mass export and that the only way to extract the information would be by breaking it down month by month, as previously advised.

I am sorry that we are unable to help further with your request.

Kind regards

Julie

Julie Hatch
Senior Customer Resolution Officer
Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team
5th Floor Laurence House
Catford, SE6 4RU
[email address]
0208 314 6131

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