Communications with local authorities about M4-South Coast routes study or review
Dear Highways England Company Limited,
Please may I see information dating from 1 January 2019 to now, contained in communications with Wiltshire Council, Berkshire Council, Dorset Council, Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council, Hampshire Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, Swindon Council, and Swindon and Wiltshire LEP, relating to a review of or study into north-south routes in the area between the M4 and the South Coast, containing the A36, A350 and the A34 corridors, being undertaken by Highways England on behalf of DfT.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Nicolson
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Dear Mr Nicolson
Thank you for your request for information about Communications with local
authorities about M4-South Coast routes study or review dated 2 July 2021.
I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act
2000.
The due date for issuing a response is 30 July 2021.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me at
[1][email address] . Please remember to quote
reference number 102256 in any future communications.
Kind regards
Emily
Emily Waterfall
Highways England
Web: [2]http://www.highways.gov.uk
This email may contain information which is confidential and is intended
only for use of the recipient/s named above. If you are not an intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any copying, distribution,
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strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please
notify the sender and destroy it.
Highways England Company Limited | General enquiries: 0300 123 5000
|National Traffic Operations Centre, 3 Ridgeway, Quinton Business Park,
Birmingham B32 1AF |
[3]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati... |
[4][Highways England request email]
Registered in England and Wales no 9346363 | Registered Office: Bridge
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Dear Mr Nicolson
I am writing regarding your request for information received on 2^nd July
2021. In that request you asked us for information contained in
communications with Wiltshire Council, Berkshire Council, Dorset Council,
Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council, Hampshire Council, Bath and
North East Somerset Council, Swindon Council, and Swindon and Wiltshire
LEP, relating to a review of or study into north-south routes in the area
between the M4 and the South Coast being undertaken by Highways England on
behalf of DfT.
For more information I work within the Highways England Network Planning
department which is currently responsible for the delivery of the M4 to
Dorset Coast strategic study, which was announced as part of the second
Roads Investment Strategy. As we are delivering the study the Network
Planning team feel we hold the most up to date and relevant information
regarding the M4 to Dorset Coast study, although there may be further
communications regarding the study across the wider business.
I will be unable to proceed with your request without clarification of the
information you wish to receive. To help us do so, I would like to know
whether you require all communications in regards to the study from across
Highways England, or whether you require only communications from the
Network Planning department in relation to the study. If you require
communications from across the whole of Highways England then we may need
to consider reducing the scope of your request so it does not exceed the
section 12 of the guidance, which includes a limit on time and cost to
provide the requested information.
Please note that if I do not receive appropriate clarification of your
information requirements within three months from the date of this letter,
then I will consider your request closed.
If you wish to discuss any of the above, please contact me. Please
remember to quote reference number 102256 in any future communications.
Kind regards
Emily
Emily Waterfall Planning Manager
Strategy and Planning
Highways England
From: Network Planning
Sent: 05 July 2021 16:26
To: Andrew Nicolson <[FOI #770487 email]>
Subject: Freedom of Information Request- Communications with local
authorities about M4-South Coast routes study or review - ref102256
Dear Mr Nicolson
Thank you for your request for information about Communications with local
authorities about M4-South Coast routes study or review dated 2 July 2021.
I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act
2000.
The due date for issuing a response is 30 July 2021.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me at
[1][email address] . Please remember to quote
reference number 102256 in any future communications.
Kind regards
Emily
Emily Waterfall
Highways England
Web: [2]http://www.highways.gov.uk
This email may contain information which is confidential and is intended
only for use of the recipient/s named above. If you are not an intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any copying, distribution,
disclosure, reliance upon or other use of the contents of this email is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please
notify the sender and destroy it.
Highways England Company Limited | General enquiries: 0300 123 5000
|National Traffic Operations Centre, 3 Ridgeway, Quinton Business Park,
Birmingham B32 1AF |
[3]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati... |
[4][Highways England request email]
Registered in England and Wales no 9346363 | Registered Office: Bridge
House, 1 Walnut Tree Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4LZ
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Dear Network Planning,
Att'n Emily Waterfall,
Reference number 102256
Thank you for your informative and helpful message of 16 July 2021. In view of its contents, and by way of clarification, I would like to see communications to and from the Network Planning Department, regarding the M4 to Dorset Coast strategic study, which was announced as part of the second Roads Investment Strategy.
You have kindly told me that you are dealing with my request under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, I regard this as environmental information, and I would like you to comply with the disclosure requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations to the extent, if relevant, that these differ by exceeding those of the Freedom of Information Act.
As to my list of Councils, can you please interpret it, if you will, as meaning all the relevant Councils you have communicated with regarding the strategic study, even if I failed to list them explicitly, and of course disregard any of the Councils I listed, that you have not communicated with regarding the strategic study.
In the meantime, by way of advice and assistance on this or a further request, please can you tell me, if reasonably convenient:
when Network Planning or its agents started work on this study;
whether and if so when a draft or drafts of the study report(s) have been or will be produced;
whether and if so when a draft or drafts have been circulated to the relevant Councils;
and kindly give me a timeline or expected date or range of time when a final report is expected to be (a) completed, and/or (b) published?
I shall be grateful for an acknowledgement of this message.
I look forward to your response and to the information, with great interest and anticipation.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Nicolson
Dear Network Planning,
Thanks again for 16 July 2021 clarification request. I'm looking forward to an acknowledgement of my 10 August 2021 clarification. Can you also give me an expected or latest date when I can expect your response with the information, please?
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Nicolson
Dear Mr Nicolson
Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your email- I was on leave last week and it wasn't picked up.
Thank you for your clarification on the information you require, and I can confirm this enables us to provide the information you have requested. I can also confirm that I will deal with your request under the Environmental Information Regulations and the due date to respond is 8th September.
I note in your email of 10th August you have also set out a number of additional questions and I will endeavour to respond to you on these as soon as possible.
Kind regards
Emily
Dear Mr Nicolson
I am writing to advise you that the time-limit for responding to your request for information which we received on 10th August 2021 needs to be extended under Regulation 7 of the Environmental Information Regulations.
In the case of your request, I must extend the time limit by approximately 20 working days because the information requested is complex and voluminous and it is impracticable to comply with the request, or make a decision to refuse to do so, within the earlier period.
I hope to let you have a response by 6th October.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote reference number 102256 in any future communications.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request you may ask for an internal review. Our internal review process is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
If you require a print copy, please phone the Information Line on 0300 123 5000; or e-mail [email address]. You should contact me if you wish to complain.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely
Emily Waterfall
Dear Mr Nicolson
Please find attached all recorded correspondence between National Highways (previously Highways England) and Local Councils regarding the M4 to Dorset Coast Study.
Please note that these documents have been redacted under Regulation 13 of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 for personal information.
In your request you also set out a number of questions and I have responded to these in turn below:-
when Network Planning or its agents started work on this study;
The full M4 to Dorset Coast Study has not yet begun and is due to begin at the end of October 2021. However the Network Planning team have undertaken a short scoping study to consider and define a number of factors for the full strategic study such as objectives, locational scope and methodology. I have attached an executive summary brochure which provides further detail on the outputs of the scoping study and plans for the future study.
whether and if so when a draft or drafts of the study report(s) have been or will be produced;
As per the response above the full study has not yet started. An executive summary providing an overview of the outputs of the scoping study has been produced and this is attached. The full study is due to begin at the end of October 2021 and will run for around one year. Any study reports will be produced as part of the full study.
whether and if so when a draft or drafts have been circulated to the relevant Councils;
The executive summary brochure attached has been circulated to the relevant councils. No further study reports have been shared with relevant councils at this stage.
and kindly give me a timeline or expected date or range of time when a final report is expected to be (a) completed, and/or (b) published?
The study is due to begin at the end of October 2021 and run for around one year. It is envisaged that any study reports will be published around Autumn/Winter 2022.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request you may ask for an internal review. Our internal review process is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
If you require a print copy, please phone the Information Line on 0300 123 5000; or e-mail [email address]. You should contact me if you wish to complain.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote reference number 102256 in any future communications.
Yours sincerely
Emily
Emily Waterfall
Planning Manager
Strategy and Planning
National Highways
Dear Ms Waterfall,
INTERNAL REVIEW REQUEST
M4 to Dorset Coast Connectivity Study
I acknowledge your message of 4 October and attachments. Thank you for these and for your answers to my questions. I have read them in detail and with great interest and found them useful, such as they are.
Even so, I regret I am unhappy with the way you/your organisation have handled my request. Here are the reasons:
1. Delay: clarification. My original request was 2 July 2021. Not until 16 July, two weeks into the four week maximum response time, did you ask for clarification. I could have received that up to two weeks earlier.
2. Delay: leave. I sent clarification on 10 August and chased on 18 August. You replied on 19 August and wrote, "I was on leave last week and it wasn't picked up." You are required to comply with all requests for
information as soon as possible, and must not delay responding until the end of the 20-working day period if
the information could reasonably have been provided earlier. As you are in a team and not a lone worker, arrangements should have been put in place, and I could have received the information a week earlier.
3. Delay: "complex and voluminous". Almost two weeks after that and on the last day before the 8 September due date, you wrote and gave yourself another "approximately 20 working days”, “because the information requested is complex and voluminous". I disagree.
(a) Your first attachment is 7 pages, about 1850 words (average 264 per page), and needed no redactions.
(b) Your other attachment is 150 pages, but of these:
(i) 14 pages (3-9 and 144-150) are duplicates of the first attachment.
(ii) 68 pages (74-141) are the 2014 CH2M Hill study sent to you by B&NES Council. You redacted one word, a name.
(iii) 3 pages (13-15) are the 1/3/2021 letter from Valley Parishes Alliance to B&NES Council, and you redacted only names.
(iv) one page (59), perhaps the 3rd page of the 1/3/2021 emailed letter from Arup to MPs, is blank.
This leaves 65 pages, containing emails. Of these:
(v) 12 are copies of the 9/2/2021 email from Arup to stakeholders.
(vi) 7 are copies of the 11/3/2021 email from Arup to stakeholders.
This leaves 35 other distinct emails. In the line counts below, I exclude headers, opening and closing salutations, contact details etc. and footer material, and I count only the text of the email bodies, counted in lines or parts of lines.
(vii) 22 emails are 0 to 5 lines long. These are generally trivial acknowledgements or 'housekeeping' or identify attenders, etc.
(viii) Five are 6 to 10 lines long.
(ix) Four are 11 to 20 lines long.
(x) Four are 21 to 34 lines long.
I think you have redacted nothing in any emails except names.
In my view this is not a complex body of material, nor is it voluminous. However, in your response I would like you to give the criteria you use to identify complex material and voluminous materials, explain (if you stand by your claims) in what way this material is complex, and how complex, and likewise in what way it is voluminous, and how voluminous, by the criteria.
I would also like you to explain how it was, in addition to the material being "complex and voluminous", that it was also "impracticable to comply with the request [...] within the earlier period."
4. Withheld information: names. You have unjustifiably redacted a large number, if not all, names in the information. Though a signature is often redacted, for valid reasons, and may be in a sense information about a person, a name alone is not information "about" a person, merely who they are.
These include:
(i) non-personal names and email addresses such as M4toDorsetCoastConnectivityStudy. These are not personal information.
(ii) Names of MPs, on page 58. These are constitutionally public information and should not be withheld.
(iii) names of senior officers of local authorities, where you have disclosed their job titles. These are invariably public information, to be found on local authority websites, committee reports, newspaper reports etc. They are in the public domain. You should not have withheld them. Given the extra four weeks you took, you could have checked the public status of these few names individually.
(iv) Names of other officers or staff members at local authorities, Arup, Highways England etc. You seem to have routinely redacted every name you could find, as if following a rule. You have not shown any public interest test on this, nor quoted any exemption/exception.
It is a matter of fundamental public interest in democratic participation, accountability and transparency for people to be able to engage with council officers, Highways England staff and indeed significant contractors working on behalf of public bodies, to be able to communicate with them to give information, ask questions and make representations. The more so where, as here, plans, policies and decisions relating to the environment are being developed. Hence you should have exercised a presumption favour of disclosure, and not redacted the names. I cannot use the information you provided in legitimate ways that I might like to.
5. Withheld information: communications with Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. If there were no outgoing nor incoming communications with either of these, then I withdraw this item. However, Wiltshire and Swindon host a section of the M4, and Wiltshire hosts some half of the A350. You/Arup held sessions for the local authorities north and south. It is not plausible that there were no such communications with either.
6. Withheld information: communications with Western Gateway Sub-national Transport Body.
The Western Gateway STB covers some half of the study area. You/Arup held a session for STBs. The WG STB is, I believe, a mere unincorporated alliance of local authorities and an extension of them, in a similar way to the West of England Combined Authority (see page 66 of your second attachment). You should have interpreted my request broadly to include the WG, and any other STBs.
7. Withheld information: Stakeholder Feedback Report. The 9/7/2021 email from M4toDorsetCoastConnectivityStudy (page 1 of your second attachment) at Highways England indicates that this report was to be circulated w/c 12 July 2021. My amended request was dated 10 August. Yet you have neither listed the existence of this report, nor provided it, nor told me that you are withholding it, and why. The text at the top of page 2 does not amount to a valid reason for withholding it. A version is not a draft. Even if you had or have a reason in mind, a presumption in favour of disclosure and a public interest test applies. There is a clear and powerful public interest in transparency over expressions by elected bodies, on matters of transport policy and planning. Even if you did not in the event circulate this report, it is both a report of information you received from the local authorities and a communication intended for them, so it comes within my request.
Overall, I am sorry to say that this has not been a disclosure process of a standard I would have expected from any part of Highways England, either in relation to timeliness and stated reason for delay, or in relation to completeness of disclosure, redactions and provision of reasons for withholding information.
I wish you well on a personal level, and look forward to your reply which, in all the circumstances, I hope you can provide in a shorter-than-maximum time. I also look forward to receiving the information I consider I should have received.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Nicolson
Dear Mr Nicolson
Thank you for your email and I am sorry to hear you are unhappy with how your request has been handled, please accept our apologies.
I can confirm that your complaint has been passed to our internal review team to undertake a formal investigation. The team have up to 40 working days to respond but they will aim to respond to you within 20 working days and by 4th November.
If you have any further queries in the meantime please do let me know.
Kind regards
Emily
Dear M4 to Dorset Coast Connectivity Study,
Dear Emily Waterfall,
On 17 October you wrote that the team "will aim to respond to you within 20 working days and by 4th November."
I cannot see a response. Am I about to receive one, please?
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Nicolson
Dear Mr Nicolson,
Please find attached the internal review ref. IR 102256 and relevant
documents of your request ref. EIR 102256.
Kind Regards
Jonathan Drysdale
Freedom of Information Officer (HE)
Digital Services
National Highways | Piccadilly Gate | Store Street | Manchester | M1 2WD
Web: [1]https://nationalhighways.co.uk/
You can make new FOI requests and review published responses by
visiting [2]https://foiform.highwaysengland.co.uk/
This email may contain information which is confidential and is intended
only for use of the recipient/s named above. If you are not an intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any copying, distribution,
disclosure, reliance upon or other use of the contents of this email is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please
notify the sender and destroy it.
Highways England Company Limited | General enquiries: 0300 123 5000
|National Traffic Operations Centre, 3 Ridgeway, Quinton Business Park,
Birmingham B32 1AF |
[3]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati... |
[4][email address]
Registered in England and Wales no 9346363 | Registered Office: Bridge
House, 1 Walnut Tree Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4LZ
Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really
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Dear Highways England Company Limited,
In his response Internal Review Andrew Nicolson IR 102256, 12 November 2021, Jonathan Drysdale, Freedom of Information Officer wrote:
"Finally moving to you final and 7th point regarding the Stakeholder Feedback Form not being provided. Again, as indicated above your request was for the communications between ourselves and the councils listed, if the Stakeholder Feedback Form had been attached to one of the e-mails in the scope it would have been provided as part of the disclosure however because the form was never circulated i.e. wasn’t attached to one of the e-mails in the scope of the request, the form itself didn’t come into the scope. "
However, I did not request a Stakeholder Feedback 'Form' but a Stakeholder Feedback 'Report' referred to in a 9/7/2021 email from theM4toDorsetCoastConnectivityStudy team.
May I have this, please?
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Nicolson
Dear Mr Nicolson,
Thank you for your e-mail of 2 December 2021.
I just wanted to acknowledge that I recognise that you did not refer to the Stakeholder Feedback Form in your request for internal review but did instead refer to the Stakeholder Feedback Report, so please accept my apologies for that error. However, I can confirm that the reasoning and decisions provided in my internal review as to why this was not provided applies to the report as well because your request was for the communications between ourselves and the councils listed. If the Stakeholder Feedback Report (previously referred to as Form) had been attached to one of the e-mails in the scope it would have been provided as part of the disclosure however, because the report was never circulated i.e. wasn't attached to one of the e-mails in the scope of the request, the report itself didn't come into the scope. Therefore, I am satisfied that no information with the scope of your request was withheld.
I can see you have requested a copy of the report within this What Do They Know chain, as per your e-mail, but also note that you have set up a separate What Do They Know chain and requested the report there as well. As such we are going to address the request for this report in your newest What Do They Know chain and not within this one as well as it would be classed as a repeated request at that time.
I trust the above clarifies the situation with the internal review and the new request you have submitted subsequently, and again please accept my apologies for the error in the wording of the review.
Kind Regards
Jonathan Drysdale
Freedom of Information Officer (HE)
Digital Services
National Highways | Piccadilly Gate | Store Street | Manchester | M1 2WD
Web: https://nationalhighways.co.uk/
You can make new FOI requests and review published responses by visiting https://foiform.highwaysengland.co.uk/
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