128-150 Blackfriars Road - Planning Application information
Dear Southwark Borough Council,
128-150 Blackfriars Road Planning Application 14/AP/1862
Please provide the following:
1. Minutes of meetings held between officers and/or councillors and the applicant.
2. Emails and text messages between officers and/or councillors and the applicant.Particularly the Leader of the Council and the Chair of the Planning Committee. 3.Drafts of the officer's report for the planning committee meeting of 16 December 2014 prior to that prepared for the meeting rearranged for the 18 December.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Earnshaw
Dear Planning,
128-150 Blackfriars Road
I have not received a response to my request, which by law should have been made by 17 February 2015.
Please respond without further delay
Yours sincerely,
Peter Earnshaw
Dear Planning,
128-150 Blackfriars Road 489207
Please respond to my request for information sent on 21 January 2015, the statutory period for provision of this information having expired on 17 February 2015.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Earnshaw
Link: [1]File-List
Dear Mr Earnshaw,
Re: Your request for information: 489207
Thank you for your request for information that was received in 20 January
2015 which you requested:
128-150 Blackfriars Road Planning Application 14/AP/1862
Please provide the following:
1. Minutes of meetings held between officers and/or councillors
and the applicant.
2. Emails and text messages between officers and/or councillors
and the applicant.Particularly the Leader of the Council and the Chair of
the Planning Committee.
3. Drafts of the officer's report for the planning committee
meeting of 16 December 2014 prior to that prepared for the meeting
rearranged for the 18 December.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay that occurred in
responding to your request.
Your request has been dealt with under the Environmental Information
Regulations 2004.
In response to your request, I am able to provide the following
information:
1. Minutes of meetings held between officers and/or councillors
and the applicant.
Information not held
2. Emails and text messages between officers and/or councillors
and the applicant.Particularly the Leader of the Council and the Chair of
the Planning Committee.
Information not held
3. Drafts of the officer's report for the planning committee
meeting of 16 December 2014 prior to that prepared for the meeting
rearranged for the 18 December.
Please note this information is withheld in line with 12(4)(d) of
Environmental Information Regulations 2004 – the request relates to
material still in the course of completion, to unfinished documents or to
incomplete data;
Reliance upon an exemption under the EIR is always subject to the
requirement under Regulation 12(1)(b) that the public interest in
maintaining the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosing the
information.
In arriving at this view, the council has considered the following factors
both for and against the release of this information:
Similarly in this instance, the council has considered the following
factors both for and against the release of information:
Factors in favour of release:
· Transparency
· providing the public in the local area with the
opportunity to challenge the council on its policies and activities
relating to the issue; and
· raising the profile of the issue in order to encourage
public debate
Factors in favour of withholding:
· The document is part of material which was at the time
still in the course of completion and therefore could contain inaccurate
data
· Disclosure would give a misleading or inaccurate
impression;
· Publishing incomplete or unfinished information would
distract public debate away from substantive arguments i.e. that debate
would focus on secondary issues such as any deficiencies in the
information rather than the substantive environmental issues that the
information relates to.
It is therefore the council’s assertion that the factors in favour of
withholding this information outweigh the factors in favour of release.
Please also note the final report is now available online at:
[2]http://planbuild.southwark.gov.uk/docume...
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to make an appeal for a review of our decision, you
should write to the Corporate Freedom of Information Manager at:
Corporate Freedom of Information Officer
The Governance Team (2^nd floor)
PO Box 64529
London
SE1P 5LX
Email: [3][Southwark Borough Council request email]
If you are not content with the outcome of your appeal, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the
Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have first
exhausted our internal appeal procedure and you should contact him within
2 months of the outcome of your internal appeal.
Further information on the Freedom of Information Act is available through
the Information Commissioner at the:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Internet: [4]www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely,
Martyna Plewniak
System Information Project Officer
The email you received and any files transmitted with it are confidential,
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References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D08D98.2B8F9580
2. http://planbuild.southwark.gov.uk/docume...
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
Dear CEXaccessinfo,
Your response is unacceptable in every regard.
To claim that the communications and information requested from officers and councillors are not held means that they have therefore been destroyed. Why is this so?
This application was approved against a considerable weight of planning policy and in circumstances which give cause for local residents to doubt the level of probity involved. The overriding criteria is therefore one of transparency, rather than whether someone could possibly be mislead by the response.
In 2011 on another planning matter I understand Lord Justice Thomas said:
“It involves what can only be described – and I use these words deliberately – exceptionally murky dealings in the London Borough of Southwark. I am satisfied this is a case where there would have been very, very strong evidence of mal-administration. The question is: does what happened amount to misfeasance?"
Although on the evidence presented the decision of the Council was upheld, Lord Justice Thomas nevertheless still chose to make this comment. Greater openness is required and your response therefore to my request is inadequate.
Yours faithfully
Peter Earnshaw
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