A request for a contamination report regarding Rockwood Nursery, Burnley

Waiting for an internal review by Lancashire County Council of their handling of this request.

Dear Lancashire County Council,

In 2014 a planning application was made by Lancashire County Council, reference LCC/2014/0034 for works at Rockwood Nursery in Burnley. One consideration for this application was the potential for pollution at the proposed site because of the existing oil tank that had been located there for decades.

During the planning consultation, one of the speakers, Faith Stringer, the head teacher at Rockwood Nursery and a director of the Teddy's Playgroup, during her presentation to the development committee mentions that the site had been inspected and declared safe - I would like a copy of that report please together with any associated results from sample testing or similar that may be available.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Cavaney

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Cavaney,

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your email in which you request the disclosure of information under the provisions of the above Act.

The deadline date for issuing you with a full response is 6/1. We will endeavour to provide a response well in advance of this date, however, should we envisage any delays, or require more details from you, we will contact you immediately.

If you have any queries about the above, please do not hesitate to contact us, quoting ref 826.1556.

Yours sincerely,
On behalf of the Access to Information Team
Lancashire County Council
T: 01772 531116
www.lancashire.gov.uk

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Your response to this request is now very late. By now, I should have had a response.

Where two year old children and contamination are concerned I would have expected a degree of urgency?

Could I ask that this request is responded to as soon as possible?

Yours sincerely,

Peter Cavaney

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Cavaney,
 
I write further to your request to access information regarding Rockwood
Nursery and apologise that you have not received a response within the
legislative timescales. We are currently working on providing you with a
response as soon as possible and I will be in touch in due course. I hope
the delay is not causing too much inconvenience.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Vicky Austin
 
Access to Information Officer
Access to Information Team
Lancashire County Council
[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk
 
 

Are you prepared for [2]winter?

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Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

Either this report exists or it doesn't - why is LCC delaying it's response?

Dear Lancashire County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Lancashire County Council's handling of my FOI request 'A request for a contamination report regarding Rockwood Nursery, Burnley'.

This is plainly a serious matter and should have been dealt with urgently.

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

Yours faithfully,

Peter Cavaney

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

LCC Information officers have refused all my requests as vexatious. Here's my answer -

Dear Freedom of Information,

What a surprise. At the very least I would have expected you to satisfy existing requests before refusing to allow any more !

Plainly the information I have asked for is of public interest and relevant to the lack of respect and consideration shown by Lancashire County Council in it's actions in establishing a business in a residential area without consideration for the relevant acts (Control of Pollution, Environmental Protection Act), planning legislation, or the effect it has had on local amenity. My requests for the pollution report is of obvious concern to any parent having children at this establishment, the financial aspects are clearly with a view to calling into question the value for money that this operation represents to the taxpayer and the questions concerning the alarm relate to the negligence of staff in their duty of care to this facility and indeed to the LCC for failing to deal with this in any sensible fashion. You have made no attempt to establish my reasons for making these requests.

You are interfering with the law - the freedom of information act was designed to make it possible for individuals such as myself to examine questionable activities, your implication that my requests are vexatious is a thin excuse - I would point out the following -

"Section 14(1) can only be applied to the request itself and not
the individual who submitted it." So you cannot 'blanket' refuse future requests as you suggest, and you need to refuse all my requests individually.

Are you saying my requests are unreasonable or would cause disruption, irritation or distress? They may well be irritating but only insofar as they are attracting attention to wrongdoing.

I further point out that all the requests I have made are straightforward and would not incur major cost or time penalties. I find it remarkable that you have spent more time trying to deflect my requests than it would have taken to satisfy them ! Why also has so much time gone by before this latest attempt to avoid answering? My request for the pollution report was due on January 6th 2015 and it's now over a month late?
I have already involved my MP, I have already referred one of your refusals to the ICO, I'll now refer the others once you have followed proper procedure and refused them rather than simply ignoring them.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Cavaney

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

It's the 10th of April - Lancs County information office has not responded to my accusation that they have acted outside FOI provisions, they have not individually refused my FOI requests nor have they agreed that their refusal to accept any more requests is contrary to the FOI act.

It's really, really poor.

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

It's taken a long while but Lancashire County Council has finally admitted that the contamination report I asked for so long ago DOES NOT EXIST. Even Jo Turton, the chief executive could not simply tell me that the development committee were lied to in order to get the planning application passed and has condoned the deception.Remember this application was for a classroom for two-year old's !
My appeal to the information commissioners office failed, largely due to the defamatory and untrue comments LCC made to the commissioner regarding me - I have now referred this to the appeals tribunal along with the facts.

Why could LCC simply not have told the truth when I first asked for this report? Why did they then tell lies to the information commissioners office? These people are supposed to uphold the rules,they are supposed to work for US. What has gone on here?

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

It's taken a long while, but the appeal system worked and LCC were told to produce this report - that wasn't until Dec 2nd 2015!!

Time passed with no response so I passed it back to the information office for review. LCC responded by sending me what I can only describe as a scrap of paper that is undated, unsigned, does not describe the area where the testing was done and does not list contaminants relevant to oil spillage. The company that is named on this report will not confirm that they did it.

Burnley planning have been presented with a list of the rules and policies that they broke/ignored/disregarded in relation to the original planning application and have failed to respond to a single item.

This is ridiculous and a complete waste of taxpayers money.

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

The information officer at LCC has finally confirmed that the contamination report mentioned by the head teacher does not exist, something I was sure of when all this started.

Questions arising are why was I sent what was claimed to be the report when no report had been done? I managed to contact the company that produced the report I was sent. They have declined to put it in writing but have told me that the inspection they HAVE done since the start of all this back in 2014 revealed the presence of asbestos on the site. It just gets worse.

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

Since LCC sent me the "scrap of paper" which at least reveals an inspection was done 'sometime', I have made a further request under the Environmental Regulations Act for details of this report. On 15th March 2016, more than a year after my original request, LCC have declared that they do not have the information I requested about this second contamination report. I can't accept that, back to the appeals process.

Peter Cavaney left an annotation ()

Following further enquiries by my MP Julie Cooper, I have a letter from Jo Turton the chief executive of Lancs County dated 4th November confirming that, despite the evidence I have produced of wide-ranging fuel oil contamination and the mandatory waste report confirming the presence of asbestos at this nursery, further despite the repeated and varied claims that an inspection had been done, no such independent inspection ever took place. The degree of dishonesty and arrogance displayed by all parties involved in this episode has been staggering.
With a name like mine I am easy to find on Facebook, if you want the details please get in touch.