Town Village Green Application - Brookfield Walk, Clevedon

The request was refused by North Somerset Council.

Dear North Somerset Council,
On Wednesday 19 August 2020, the Planning & Regulatory Committee agreed that permission be REFUSED on Application Town & Village Green Baytree School, Brookfield Walk Clevedon

This FOI will aid my understanding leading to this refusal as required under the Environmental Information Regulations. I fully understand the FOI regulations do not require you to republish information already in the public domain, particularly the reports already on the Council Web Portal.

This FOI request asks for information (as defined section 84 of the FOI Act) leading up to the production of those reports and including any reports/finding found that were not considered to be carried forward for formal publication. EG on 16/09/2020 a councillor mentioned a National Trust property has some formal say on close land to the Application site, yet this is not referred in any reports documented on your web pages. This paragraph is given only an example not as a sole aspect.

Further, I require any information, but not limited to, documents, pre-planning notes, site meeting notes, emails, internal correspondence, telephone call notes, dates of any interaction with external bodies, committee notes, officers correspondence, general correspondence, analysis, issues raised/dismissed, briefing opinion; which may have .lead to the ‘formal’ planning application and consequent REFUSAL relating to – Town & Village Green Application Baytree School, Brookfield Walk Clevedon

Kindly reply via this web site

Yours faithfully,

R Tozer

FoI, North Somerset Council

Good morning

Thank you for your request. I note that you have made three requests of a related subject, and in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, I am, therefore, merging your requests into a single request. Any further correspondence will be sent to the request subject:

Freedom of Information request - Comment - Planning Committee Meet 16th September 2020

Many thanks

Lynsey Wilson
Information Governance Manager
North Somerset Council

Tel: 01275 885117
Email:[email address]
Post: Town Hall, Walliscote Grove Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1UJ
Web:www.n-somerset.gov.uk

show quoted sections

Dear FoI,
Thank you for your early reply.
I most strongly object to your suggestion and must ask what FOI regulation indicates that you have the authority to join three very separate requests for information.
In the recent planning and regulatory meetings NSC officer clearly indicated the TVG and School application were separate. and to be kept separate
I am fully aware that FOI do not require for information to be duplicated and I well prepared for one request to be referred in answers to the other, each one may contain different information that was not considered at that time and by linking requests as per your suggestion will certainly not be an open and transparent approach to each request raised.
I do not intend to repeat the 'same' arguments in each of three requests and will hold them open at this stage, otherwise i will consider a refusal and ask for internal review and consequent advice from ICO

Yours sincerely,

R Tozer

FoI, North Somerset Council

Good afternoon

Thank you for your email. I can confirm that the guidance relating to combining requests can be found in the following guidance document https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio..., paragraph 41:

‘Two or more requests’
41. Public authorities can aggregate two or more separate requests.

As long as the request is handled under the same legislation (in this case the Environmental Information Regulations), and of a similar subject matter (in this case planning applications related to Brookfield Walk, Clevedon), multiple requests from the same requester / organisation can be combined into a single request. The purpose of this is to prevent requesters from sending in multiple small requests, where a single request would be rejected due to the time constraints involved in handling it. However, from an operational perspective, it also reduces the pressures and occasional confusion placed on handling officers, where they are approached multiple times for similar information.

Please rest assured that the final response you receive will be the same regardless of whether we handled your requests as single or multiple requests.

Many thanks

Lynsey Wilson
Information Governance Manager
North Somerset Council

Tel: 01275 885117
Email:[email address]
Post: Town Hall, Walliscote Grove Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1UJ
Web:www.n-somerset.gov.uk

show quoted sections