Dear Mr Birkett

REF: 2009/COR0601 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION, ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION - INFORMATION REQUEST

I acknowledge your request received on 28 September 2009

Your request is being considered and you will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, subject to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third party.

If appropriate, the information may be provided in paper copy, normal font size, or electronically. If you require alternative formats, e.g. language, audio, large print, etc. then please let me know.

For your information, the Act and the Regulations define a number of exemptions which may prevent release of the information you have requested. There will be an assessment and if any of the exemption categories apply then the information will not be released. You will be informed if this is the case, including your rights of appeal.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to release the information to you. You will be informed if this is the case.

There may a fee payable for this information. This will be considered and you will be informed if a fee is payable. In this event the fee must be paid before the information is processed and released. The 20 working day time limit for responses is suspended until receipt of the payment.

If you have any queries do not hesitate to contact me.

Further information is available from the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, Telephone: 01625 545 700, http://www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Alison Ross-Dow
Senior Information Management Officer
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
Information Management Team/Finance & Corporate Services
2nd Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall Extension
King Street
London W6 9JU
DL: 020 8753 2455

www.lbhf.gov.uk

Director of Finance & Corporate Services: Jane West

Dear Mr Birkett,

REF: 2009COR0601 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION, ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION - INFORMATION REQUEST

Your request for information has now been considered and it is not possible to supply the information you have requested.

To comply with the broad nature of your request to provide any information that relates in any way to the replacement of the council's air quality monitoring stations would require a member of staff to be taken off normal duties to sort through correspondence, print, read through all e-mails, reports, etc, redact exempt information and finally scan all papers ready for electronic submission.

An initial search of e-mails, and their sorting and saving as part of an organised response to your query has found over 200 messages that relate to the replacement of the council's air quality monitoring stations, equating to over 500 pages of text to check. It has been estimated that it would take 4 to 5 days before all correspondence could be ready for release.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit. S.12 of the Act recognises that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the process of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit - as set by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees Charges) Regulations 2004 this is 18 hours. For requests which will exceed 18 hours to administer, the authority may refuse the request or levy a charge at £25 per hour for staff time.
The administration costs include:

(a) determining whether it holds the information,
(b) locating the information, or a document which may contain the information,
(c) retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the information, and
(d) extracting the information from a document containing it.

It is our policy to refuse requests which exceed the 18 hours, however if you were to make a new request for a more narrow category of information, it may be that we could comply with that request within the appropriate limit, although I cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

It is likely that some of the information you have requested falls under the Environmental Information Regulations. We believe your request to be manifestly unreasonable under Regulation 12 (4) (b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The guidance provided by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs states that requests can be considered manifestly unreasonable if they place a substantial and unreasonable burden on the resources of a public authority which we believe applies in this case.
(www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/opengov/eir/guidance/full-guidance/pdf/guidance-7.pdf<http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/opengo...>).

Much of the information held by the council on the replacement of the air quality monitoring stations relates to making arrangements for the decommissioning of the old units, including disconnection of power supplies, phone lines, removal of analysers and other equipment, arrangements for removal of the enclosures, including liasing with specialist contractors, the Highways Division and other council divisions, whilst information relating to the establishment of a new monitoring site include internal consultations regarding potential sites, communications with air quality equipment suppliers, arrangements for site preparation ready for delivery, installation of new power connections etc. At the moment, the new monitoring station unit has been installed on the west side of Shepherd's Bush Green, but it is not yet operational due to delays in installing and connecting a new power supply and meter. It is hoped that the required work will be completed soon.

Most of the information that we provide in response to requests for information will be subject to copyright protection. You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for example, by publishing the information (including on a web site) or issuing copies to the public will require our permission. This is consistent with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

If you are dissatisfied in any way you may write to the Information Manager, Business Technology, 2nd Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall Extension, London W6 9JU.

Once you have exhausted the complaints procedure you may appeal to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, Telephone: 01625 545 700, http://www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Baker
senior env. policy & projects officer
planning division
environment services department
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

email: [email address]
Tel: 020 8753 3431
Fax: 020 8753 3036

http://www.lbhf.gov.uk

director of environment: Nigel Pallace