21/01331/F - Baltic Wharf - Documents removed from the Planning Portal

The Bristol Tree Forum made this Freedom of Information request to Bristol City Council Automatic anti-spam measures are in place for this older request. Please let us know if a further response is expected or if you are having trouble responding.

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Bristol City Council did not have the information requested.

Dear Bristol City Council (acting as the Local Planning Authority),

We refer to pending planning application, 21/01331/F | Erection of residential dwellings (166), commercial floorspace, integrated car and bicycle parking, refuse storage, landscaping and associated infrastructure and services. | Caravan Club Cumberland Road Bristol BS1 6XG.

At the date of this request, 786 documents are shown as having been published.

Please provide a list of all documents which have been published on the LPA's Planning Portal at https://pa.bristol.gov.uk/online-applica..., which have been removed since being published.

Yours faithfully,
Mark CD Ashdown
Chair
The Bristol Tree Forum

Dear Mark CD Ashdown

Freedom of Information Act 2000

Thank you for your request for information that was received on 1 April
2024. It is being handled under reference 46022957.

We are dealing with your request and we aim to send a response within 20
working days from the date we received your request.

For further information regarding FOI requests, please visit
[1]https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/off...

If you have any further queries about your request please contact
[2][email address].

Yours sincerely

Disclosures Team

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Bristol City Council
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Dear Mark CD Ashdown

Thank you for your request for information received on 1 April 2024.

Please find attached our response to your request.

Yours faithfully

Bristol City Council

NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Bristol City Council
This email contains proprietary confidential information some or all of
which may be legally privileged and/or subject to the provisions of
privacy legislation. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you are
not the intended recipient, an addressing or transmission error has
misdirected this e-mail; you must not use, disclose, copy, print or
disseminate the information contained within this e-mail. Please notify
the author immediately by replying to this email. Any views expressed in
this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender
specifically states these to be the views of Bristol City Council.

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Dear Bristol City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Bristol City Council's handling of my FOI request '21/01331/F - Baltic Wharf - Documents removed from the Planning Portal'.

We are not asking you to examine the (now 796) documents that are on the portal. We are asking to see the ones that have been removed from the portal. Surely the audit trail facility you refer to is designed to be interrogated to make the identification of these removed documents a straightforward task?

Furthermore, we know from previous dealings with Development Management, that documents which are submitted in support of a planning application are not always published, nor is their existence made known. Accordingly, it must follow that it is impossible for us to specify documents which may exist but have not been made public or which have been published but which have subsequently been removed from the planning portal.

We also understand that there is a facility on the planning portal which allows documents to be placed on the portal whilst not being made public.

Also, the grounds of your refusal under regulation 14 of the Environmental Information Regulations - Regulation 12(4)(c) (Request is too general) is not compliant as your refusal is conditional on compliance with Regulation 9 which states:
"9.—(2) Where a public authority decides that an applicant has formulated a request in too general a manner, it shall—
(a) ask the applicant as soon as possible and in any event no later than 20 working days after the date of receipt of the request, to provide more particulars in relation to the request; and
(b) assist the applicant in providing those particulars.
9.—(4) Where paragraph (2) applies, in respect of the provisions in paragraph (5), the date on which the further particulars are received by the public authority shall be treated as the date after which the period of 20 working days referred to in those provisions shall be calculated.
(5) The provisions referred to in paragraph (4) are—
(a) regulation 5(2);
(b) regulation 6(2)(a); and (c) regulation 14(2)."
You have not done this.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2...

Yours faithfully,
Mark CD Ashdown
Chair
The Bristol Tree Forum

Dear Bristol City Council,

By way of example:

This 'PLANNING NOTE ADDENDUM NOV 2023' dated November 2023 was published on the Planning Portal for the application on 22 December 2023 - registered as 21_01331_F-PLANNING_NOTE_ADDENDUM_NOV_2023-3594258. The revision log of this document refers to an earlier iteration called 'P1', dated May 2023.

This earlier iteration was published on the planning portal, but it has since been removed.

We require to see a copy of this earlier document, plus any other documents that were published but have since been removed or which are no longer available to the public.

Yours sincerely,
Mark CD Ashdown
Chair
The Bristol Tree Forum

Dear Mark CD Ashdown

Thank you for your request for a review received on 9 April 2024. I am
sorry that you are unhappy with our response under the Environmental
Information Regulations 2004.

I can confirm that we are considering your concerns and we will aim to
provide you with a response by 8 May 2024.

Yours faithfully

Lead Disclosures Officer
[Bristol City Council request email]

NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Bristol City Council
This email contains proprietary confidential information some or all of
which may be legally privileged and/or subject to the provisions of
privacy legislation. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you are
not the intended recipient, an addressing or transmission error has
misdirected this e-mail; you must not use, disclose, copy, print or
disseminate the information contained within this e-mail. Please notify
the author immediately by replying to this email. Any views expressed in
this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender
specifically states these to be the views of Bristol City Council.

This email has been scanned for all viruses and all reasonable precautions
have been taken to ensure that no viruses are present. Bristol City
Council cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from
the use of this email or attachments.

Dear Mark CD Ashdown

Environmental Information Regulations 2004

I am writing to ask you to clarify your request so I can complete my
internal review.
In your request you have included a hyper-link
https://pa.bristol.gov.uk/online-applica...
= summary&keyVal = QPSRENDN0DG00 which is invalid. Would you please
confirm whether you were intending to provide a link to planning
application 21/01331/F or to some another application?

I will not be able to take this matter further without this extra
information from you. Please let me know by 15 May 2024.

If I do not hear from you within the timeframe provided, I shall take it
that you do not wish to pursue this request and will consider the request
closed.

Yours faithfully

R Gardner
Lead Disclosures Officer
[Bristol City Council request email]

NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Bristol City Council
This email contains proprietary confidential information some or all of
which may be legally privileged and/or subject to the provisions of
privacy legislation. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you are
not the intended recipient, an addressing or transmission error has
misdirected this e-mail; you must not use, disclose, copy, print or
disseminate the information contained within this e-mail. Please notify
the author immediately by replying to this email. Any views expressed in
this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender
specifically states these to be the views of Bristol City Council.

This email has been scanned for all viruses and all reasonable precautions
have been taken to ensure that no viruses are present. Bristol City
Council cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from
the use of this email or attachments.

Dear Mr Gardner,

Yes. This is the application our request refers to:
21/01331/F | Erection of residential dwellings (166), commercial floorspace, integrated car and bicycle parking, refuse storage, landscaping and associated infrastructure and services. | Caravan Club Cumberland Road Bristol BS1 6XG.

I look forward to receiving your response to our request by 15 May 2024.

Yours sincerely,
Mark CD Ashdown
Chair
The Bristol Tree Forum

Dear Mr Gardner,

When can we expect to hear from you?

Yours sincerely,
Mark CD Ashdown
Chair
The Bristol Tree Forum

Dear Mr Ashdown

I apologise once again for the general delays in response to your various internal review requests. Regarding case 46022957, I am awaiting the results of what I hope is the final search necessary for the information I need to finalise my response to your internal review request. As soon as I have this I will respond in full. I can't give you a date with any certainty, but I can confirm your requests are a priority and a response will be sent as soon as I have the information I require.

Yours faithfully

R Gardner
Lead Disclosures Officer

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Ashdown

I apologise for the delay in response to your internal review into the handling of your request ref 46022957. I am waiting further specific information before I can complete my internal review. The service area holding this information are "on the case" and I hope to receive it soon. I can't yet tell you when my review will be completed, but your case is a priority and I will let you know as soon as I am able. I apologise for any inconvenience this delay has caused. On a more optimistic note, we have a new member of staff joining the disclosures team from next week which, in due course, should make a significant difference in internal review response times.

R Gardner
Lead Disclosures Officer
Information Governance | Legal and Democratic Services

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Ashdown

Our ref 46022957 - internal review response

I am writing in response to your concerns about Bristol City Council's
handling of your request for information received on 31 March 2024 and
which was responded to under the Environmental Information Regulations
(EIR) on 8 April 2024.

I was appointed to carry out an independent review as I was not involved
in the original decision.

In your request you asked for the following information:

'We refer to pending planning application, 21/01331/F | Erection of
residential dwellings (166), commercial floorspace, integrated car and
bicycle parking, refuse storage, landscaping and associated infrastructure
and services. | Caravan Club Cumberland Road Bristol BS1 6XG.

At the date of this request, 786 documents are shown as having been
published.

Please provide a list of all documents which have been published on the
LPA's Planning Portal at
https://pa.bristol.gov.uk/online-applica...
= summary&keyVal = QPSRENDN0DG00, which have been removed since being
published.'

Original decision

Bristol City Council responded to your request on to confirm that we hold
the information requested. All of the information was withheld under
Environmental Information Regulations 12(4)c as your request was deemed
'to general'.

Internal review request

On 9 April 2024 you contacted Bristol City Council to request an internal
review as you were not satisfied with the original response to the above
request.

'Also, the grounds of your refusal under regulation 14 of the
Environmental Information Regulations - Regulation 12(4)(c) (Request is
too general) is not compliant as your refusal is conditional on compliance
with Regulation 9 which states:

"9.'(2) Where a public authority decides that an applicant has formulated
a request in too general a manner, it shall'

(a) ask the applicant as soon as possible and in any event no later than
20 working days after the date of receipt of the request, to provide more
particulars in relation to the request; and

(b) assist the applicant in providing those particulars.

9.'(4) Where paragraph (2) applies, in respect of the provisions in
paragraph (5), the date on which the further particulars are received by
the public authority shall be treated as the date after which the period
of 20 working days referred to in those provisions shall be calculated.

(5) The provisions referred to in paragraph (4) are'

(a) regulation 5(2);

(b) regulation 6(2)(a); and (c) regulation 14(2)."

You have not done this.

I have treated your request for an internal review in line with the terms
of the EIR'.

Information requested

A list of all documents which have been published on the planning portal
concerning planning application, 21/01331/F but have since been removed.

Internal review

From reviewing the original response issued by the council, I agree that
Regulation 12(4)(c) was incorrectly applied, as your original request had
an unambiguous 'single objective reading', which did not need
clarification. Furthermore, had the council originally judged correctly
that the exception at Regulation 12(4)(c) was in consideration, it still
did not fulfil its required duties under Regulation 9, to clarify your
request, to apply the exception. I apologise for this misapplication of
Regulation 12(4)(c) and the general lack of clarity in the council's
original response.

You asked for information on documents 'relating to pending planning
application, 21/01331/F'; specifically, documents that were once available
but are now no longer available on the publicly accessible section of the
planning application record. I therefore instructed the service team,
managing the planning portal, to conduct a thorough search of the audit
trails of those documents not available for public inspection. This would
limit the number of documents that needed to be unnecessarily reviewed,
and fulfil your request, for information on documents 'which have been
removed'.

In the process of my investigations, the development management team
confirmed that documents are not removed from the planning portal, but
occasionally the availability status of a document may change as it is
updated or superceded or other issues are identified, such the document
contains non-disclosable information.

Of the documents on the private register, over 100 documents were public
comments listing names and addresses which are freely available in
redacted form on the public side of the portal. Of the remaining
documents, two documents were identified in scope of your request, and I
am releasing the requested information to you now.

1. 1 - FLOOD WARNING AND EVACUATION PLAN, uploaded 17^thOct22, superseded
and made sensitive 18^th Oct22

1. FINANCIAL VIABILITY ASSESSMENT MAY 2023 - uploaded 22^nd Dec23, made
sensitive 16^th Apr24

I am satisfied that appropriate reasonable searches have been made by the
service holding the requested information and that on the balance of
probabilities, all information held in scope of your request has now been
provided.

Decision

We therefore do not uphold our original decision that the exception at
Reg 12(4)c of the EIR applies and we were incorrect to refuse your
request.

I apologise for any delays and inconvenience this may have caused you. I
also apologise for the delay in providing my internal review response. We
do try to answer all internal reviews within the standard 20 working day
limit, but presently we are experiencing higher than usual levels of
requests which has resulted in extended deadlines.

If you are not content with the outcome of this Internal Review you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner's Office for a
further decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Please remember to quote reference number 46022957 in any future
communication relating to this request.

Yours sincerely,

Lead Disclosures Officer

Bristol City Council

NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email.

Bristol City Council
This email contains proprietary confidential information some or all of
which may be legally privileged and/or subject to the provisions of
privacy legislation. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you are
not the intended recipient, an addressing or transmission error has
misdirected this e-mail; you must not use, disclose, copy, print or
disseminate the information contained within this e-mail. Please notify
the author immediately by replying to this email. Any views expressed in
this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender
specifically states these to be the views of Bristol City Council.

This email has been scanned for all viruses and all reasonable precautions
have been taken to ensure that no viruses are present. Bristol City
Council cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from
the use of this email or attachments.

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21/01331/F - Baltic Wharf - Documents removed from the Planning Portal

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