Building Work at 54 Arkwright Road, CR2 0LL - Building Control Body

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Croydon Borough Council should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Croydon Borough Council,

Ref: The Building (Approved Inspectors etc.) Regulations 2010

Please provide copies of any Initial Notice and/or Notice of Cancellation served by an Approved Inspector under the Regulations, with regard to the current building work at 54 Arkwright Road, South Croydon, CR2 0LL.

Yours faithfully,

Barbara Fox

Freedom of Information, Croydon Borough Council

 

Dear Ms Fox

 

Freedom of Information Request

 

Thank you for your recent request.

 

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Yours sincerely

 

Steven Borg

FOI Co-ordinator

Croydon Council

 

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Freedom of Information, Croydon Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Fox

Freedom of Information Request

Please see attached the council's response to your Freedom of Information
request.

Yours sincerely

Croydon Council

 

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Dear Croydon Borough Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Croydon Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Building Work at 54 Arkwright Road, CR2 0LL - Building Control Body'.

Your Ref: EIR/10011687

My request (of 10 July 2019) was for COPIES of ANY Initial Notice and/or Notice of Cancellation served by an Approved Inspector under the Building (Approved Inspectors etc.) Regulations 2010, with regard to building works at 54 Arkwright Road, South Croydon, CR2 0LL.

There are NO copies of the above information to be found on the Council's website as claimed by Ms Fay. Regulation 6(1)(b) therefore does NOT apply.

Please now provide COPIES of the Initial Notice which the Council refers to as 18/02197/IN and any other Initial Notice and/or Notice of Cancellation held by the Council, with regard to the works being carried out at this address following its approval of planning applications 17/03916/FUL and 18/03680/CONR and its discharge of related planning conditions (18/02441/DISC and 18/04058/DISC).

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

Yours faithfully,

Barbara Fox

Passman, Howard, Croydon Borough Council

Dear Ms. Fox,

Thank you for your email dated 26 July 2019 in which you requested an Internal Review of the Council’s response to your request for information.

I have been asked to conduct an Internal Review of the Council's response to your request for information, and will endeavour to provide a response within the statutory timescales; that is no later than 23 September, 2019. However, if for any reason there is a need to extend the time for the review, I will contact you before that date.

Yours sincerely,

Howard Passman
020 8726 6000 ext. 62318

Information Management and Governance Co-ordinator

Resources Department
Legal Services
7th Floor Zone C
Bernard Weatherill House
8 Mint Walk
Croydon CR0 1EA

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Passman, Howard, Croydon Borough Council

Dear Ms Fox,

 

Further to your email dated 28 August 2019, in which you requested an
Internal Review of the Council’s response to your request for information,
I have now concluded this review and I am able to reply as follows.

 

In your request for Internal Review, you asked the Council to reconsider
your request as you believed that you had not been provided with the
information requested.

 

In your request for information dated 11 July 2019, you requested the
following information:

 

“Please provide copies of any Initial Notice and/or Notice of Cancellation
served by an Approved Inspector under the Regulations, with regard to the
current building work at 54 Arkwright Road, South Croydon, CR2 0LL.”

 

The Council responded to you on the 6 August 2019, and provided the
following response:

 

“This information can be searched on the planning and building control
register, please see link below.   Regulation 6(1)(b) of the Environmental
Information Regulations therefore applies where the requested information
is already publicly available and easily accessible to the applicant in
another form or format.

 

https://publicaccess3.croydon.gov.uk/onl...

 

We cannot see any IN for this address for “current works”. However, we
would only supply redacted copies of the IN to the freeholder of the
property upon proper proof of interest in the property.”

 

In your request for an Internal Review dated, 28 August 2019, you stated
the following:

 

“My request (of 10 July 2019) was for COPIES of ANY Initial Notice and/or
Notice of Cancellation served by an Approved Inspector under the Building
(Approved Inspectors etc.) Regulations 2010, with regard to building works
at 54 Arkwright Road, South Croydon, CR2 0LL.

 

There are NO copies of the above information to be found on the Council's
website as claimed by Ms Fay.  Regulation 6(1)(b) therefore does NOT
apply.

 

Please now provide COPIES of the Initial Notice which the Council refers
to as 18/02197/IN and any other Initial Notice and/or Notice of
Cancellation held by the Council, with regard to the works being carried
out at this address following its approval of planning applications
17/03916/FUL and 18/03680/CONR and its discharge of related planning
conditions (18/02441/DISC and 18/04058/DISC)”

 

On receiving your request for an Internal Review, I contacted the
Principal Building Control Surveyor, who has provided additional
information in answer to the issues raised in your Internal Review.

 

I have been informed that the Council is required to hold a register of
notices served under the Building (Approved Inspectors etc.) Regulations
2010. These notices are served under these regulations by third party
‘Approved Inspectors’ rather than being issued by the Council. The Council
is required to maintain a public register as to these notices being
served, but the notices do not ordinarily enter the public domain.

 

The notices are issued by the person undertaking the work and the Approved
Inspector together.  The effect of this, is to notify the Council that a
private sector inspector will be performing the building control function
in respect to the works and to remove the Council’s powers of enforcement
under Building Regulations while the notice and/or amendment notices are
in force. There is also no requirement for the Council to retain the
Initial Notices once they have been decided and the public register
satisfied.

 

Having considered the issues raised in your Internal Review and the status
of the Notices, the Council is of the view that the are excepted from
release. The exceptions provided for in Environmental Information
Regulations, 12 (3) (data of someone other than the applicant) and
Regulation 13 (personal information), prevent the Council from proving the
requested information, if this would contravene the General Data
Protection Regulations (GDPR) and/or the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18).

 

The Council considers to do so would be in breach of the GDPR and the DPA
2018, as providing the requested information would breach the data
protection principles.  The Council considers that this is supported by
ICO Decision Notices which have held that such information can be
considered to be the personal information of the owner of the property
(FER0681637; FER0422241; and FER0574247).  This was on the basis that
unlike a Planning Application, Building Control information does not
generally enter the public domain and as such the applicant/owner would
have a reasonable expectation that this would remain the case, unless
there were significant public interest reasons which this would require
this position to be overruled.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Howard Passman

020 8726 6000 ext. 62318

 

Information Management and Governance Co-ordinator

 

 

Resources Department

Legal Services

7th Floor Zone C

Bernard Weatherill House

8 Mint Walk

Croydon CR0 1EA

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Dear Mr Passman

Your Ref: EIR/10011687 (Building Work at 54 Arkwright Road, CR2 0LL - Building Control Body)

Further to publication of your internal review, I ask that you consider the following facts, before I unnecessarily trouble the Information Commissioner about this matter.

As far as I can see the ICO cases to which you refer (FER0681637 and FER0574247) relate to requests for the details of building regulation applications/investigations. (A search for 'FER0422241' returned no results). THIS request does NOT ask for that information, but simply for copies of documents required (BY STATUTE) to be submitted to the Council jointly by the Approved Inspector and applicant before work commences on site. (Regulation 10).

I can see that in the case of 54 Arkwright Road, since the Council failed to approve or reject it within the statutory period, the Initial Notice (18/02197/IN) came into force by default (deemed approval).

On 14 January 2019, a copy of an Initial Notice (IN) with regard to works at 29 Beech Avenue South Croydon CR2 0NN, was emailed to a member of the public by Croydon's Building Control Team ([email address]). The Notice was submitted by Stroma Building Control Ltd and is presumably the IN shown on the Council's website and given the reference 19/00026/IN, with a description of "Nine New Build Flats". (Stroma Ref:BC/80195). This Notice is substantially the same as prescribed forms at Schedule 1 of the Regulations, with certain information redacted. If this information relates to a company (as opposed to an individual) I do not believe that the information SHOULD be redacted and certainly I see no good reason for the date being redacted in that case.

I submit that there is a significant public interest in knowing the details of the Building Control Body for controversial developments of this sort and the scope of the works they have undertaken to properly 'control', through appropriate plan checking and site inspection. (As I understand it, any formal powers of 'enforcement' will nevertheless remain with the Council).

I look forward to receiving the information requested (redacted ONLY as required by law), but if this is not provided by 4 October 2019, I will proceed to the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely
Barbara Fox