Complete Non-Residential / Business Property Rates Data

The request was refused by West Lancashire Borough Council.

Dear West Lancashire District Council,

In terms of the Freedom of Information Act of 2000, could you please provide me with a complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property rates data for your local authority, and including the following fields:

- Billing Authority Code
- Firm's Trading Name (i.e. property occupant)
- Full Property Address (Number, Street, Postal Code, Town)
- Occupied / Vacant
- Date of Occupation / Vacancy
- Actual annual rates charged (in Pounds)

While such data series are often published by local authorities, I have undertaken a thorough search of your website and have not found these. If they are available, as requested, then please - in terms of Section 21 of the act - could you provide a link to the page where the data are published, as well as guidance on the update frequency.

I appreciate that properties owned / rented by individuals are personal information and such personal data (i.e. the Firm's Trading Name) would be excluded from my request in terms of Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In such cases, please provide the remaining information with the Firm's Trading Name either blank or listed as 'individual'.

Please provide this as machine-readable as either a CSV or Microsoft Excel file, capable of re-use, and under terms of the Open Government Licence.

I am compiling a comprehensive time-series database of business activity across the UK and will require the dataset updated on a quarterly basis. Some 20% of local authorities already provide this dataset (and a total of 30% of local authorities provide a subset of these data) on a monthly to quarterly basis on a dedicated page on their websites or on an open data service. I would appreciate it if you could do the same.

Yours faithfully,

Gavin Chait

Freedom Of Information, West Lancashire Borough Council

This message is to acknowledge receipt of your communication. If your
request is a valid request for information under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 it will be answered promptly and within 20 working
days.

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Freedom Of Information, West Lancashire Borough Council

1 Attachment

 

Mr Gavin Chait

[1][email address]

 

 

Ref No:2016/147

 

31^st March 2016

 

 

Dear Mr Chait

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request for Information

 

Thank you for your email of 14^th March 2016 where you requested a
complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property
rates data for your local authority.

 

The information you requested is enclosed. However we are unable  to
provide the actual annual rates charged.  If you have any queries
concerning the information provided, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to: Mr Shaun Walsh,
Transformation Manager.

 

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of an 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,

Sylvia Smith

 

Sylvia Smith

Freedom of Information Officer

West Lancashire Borough Council

______________________________

 

Tel: 01695 585031

Fax: 01695 585050

West Lancashire Borough Council,

52 Derby Street, Ormskirk, L39 2DF
______________________________

 

[2]www.westlancs.gov.uk

 

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Dear Freedom Of Information,

Thank you for the information provided. I understand that you are unable to provide data on the actual rates paid. However, are you able - as requested - provide data on the occupation state (occupied/void) for each property?

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Chait

Freedom Of Information, West Lancashire Borough Council

This message is to acknowledge receipt of your communication. If your
request is a valid request for information under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 it will be answered promptly and within 20 working
days.

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Freedom Of Information, West Lancashire Borough Council

Dear Gavin

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request for Information – Empty Properties

 

Thank you for your further request asking for  data on the occupation
state (occupied/void) for each property

 

Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

 

The information you have requested is under Section 31(1)(a) of the
Freedom of Information Act, and is therefore being withheld.

 

Having considered the public interest test, the Councils decision is that
the release of the information into the public domain would be likely to
prejudice the prevention of detection of crime.

 

Section 31 is a qualified exemption and therefore the “public interest
test” was applied.

 

Whilst the Council accepts there are indeed some advantages in the release
of the information to the public at large, I am not satisfied that this
outweighs the public interest in withholding the information for the
following reasons:

 

·         The risk that publication would prejudice the prevention of
crime, as it could lead to the likely targeting of those empty properties
by those engaged in illegal drug use and production, gang activity, arson,
vandalism, theft or other anti-social behaviour.

·         The risk that publication would lead to increased anxiety and
fear of crime amongst occupants or adjacent residential and commercial
properties, as a result of the likely targeting of the empty properties by
those engaged in criminal and anti-social behaviour.

·         The risk that publication could undermine efforts by the Council
and commercial property owners to bring empty properties back into use, in
order to improve local communities and reduce crime and vandalism in the
area around empty properties.

 

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review.  Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to:  Mr Shaun Walsh,
Transformation Manager.

 

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Sylvia

 

Sylvia Smith

Freedom of Information Officer

West Lancashire Borough Council

______________________________

 

Tel: 01695 585031

Fax: 01695 585050

West Lancashire Borough Council,

52 Derby Street, Ormskirk, L39 2DF
______________________________

 

[1]www.westlancs.gov.uk

 

Think before you print – save energy, paper and ink.

 

 

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Dear West Lancashire District Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of West Lancashire District Council's handling of my FOI request 'Complete Non-Residential / Business Property Rates Data'.

On 14 March 2016, I sent an FOI request for a complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property rates data, and including the following fields:

- Billing Authority Code
- Firm's Trading Name (i.e. property occupant)
- Full Property Address (Number, Street, Postal Code, Town)
- Occupied / Vacant
- Date of Occupation / Vacancy
- Actual annual rates charged (in Pounds)

My request has been refused in terms of Section 31(1)(a). According to the Information Commissioners Office, "Section 31 is a prejudice based exemption and is subject to the public interest test. This means that not only does the information have to prejudice one of the purposes listed, but, before the information can be withheld, the public interest in preventing that prejudice must outweigh the public interest in disclosure."

Section 31(1)(a) deals specifically with "the prevention or detection of crime".

A property being empty may well lead to it being more likely to suffer potential criminal activity, but it does not automatically follow that publishing a list of empty properties in any way changes that potential.

Empty premises will be known to residents of the community in which they are based, or they are advertised as part of a lettings offer. In other words, these are properties of which many people will be clearly aware are empty whether the local authority data are publicly available or not.

In addition, I have run - in parallel with this request - a series of FOI requests to a sample of local authorities and to all police services across England and Wales requesting total number of incidents of criminal activity in empty commercial properties.

To date, no local authorities or police services have produced such data and it appears that no such data are collected. The only data (very sparsely collected) by local authorities about incidents of crime in council-owned commercial premises indicates that no such crime is recorded, even in local authorities where details of empty properties are regularly published.

It is very difficult to substantiate a Section 31 refusal if you have no data to validate your concern. Of the 350 local authorities in England and Wales, more than 53% of these either already make empty property data available, or have done so in response to FOI requests from ourselves.

In other words, there is no substantive basis for concern that publishing a list of empty properties will lead to prejudice under Section 31.

In terms of Public Interest, the purpose of our use of the data requested is in informing entrepreneurs and business seekers about opportunities in empty premises when they are advertised for new tenants. We combine local authority premises occupation data with other data (from the Valuations Office and ONS) to develop forward guidance on business potential in each empty business property. Further details on our activities are available at http://pikhaya.com, but our activity is supported by the Open Data Institute and we have received funding from the EU Open Data Incubator to develop this service.

Our combined data are made available via online commercial property leasing intermediaries as a free service to business seekers. These leasing intermediaries combine our data with properties being offered for rent.

We are mindful, though, that not all authorities wish to release direct information on empty premises. In that case, could we suggest that you provide only a list of occupied properties which we would then reconcile against the master list of properties from the Valuations Office Agency (VOA). VOA data are available via their website, and the complete database by subscription. Empty premises will be known to residents of the community in which they are based. That means that anyone not resident in your community and wanting to find the list of empty properties would have to undertake the costs and technicalities of a similar data reconciliation.

I would ask that you consider that the public interest in economic development and improving opportunities for independent businesses and entrepreneurs far outweighs any concern that the release of data which can identify empty business properties may cause crime.

Unemployment and economic deprivation are often key to reducing the potential for crime. Our intention is to support local economic development initiatives through the use of these data.

I ask that you reconsider your decision and make this data available to us under terms which permit our use thereof.

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

Yours faithfully,

Gavin Chait

Freedom Of Information, West Lancashire Borough Council

This message is to acknowledge receipt of your communication. If your
request is a valid request for information under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 it will be answered promptly and within 20 working
days.

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Walsh, Shaun, West Lancashire Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Chait,

Thank you for your email dated 8 April 2016 in which you requested that I carry out an internal review of the Council’s refusal to provide certain information to you in relation to your freedom of information requests dated 14 March 2016 and 1 April 2016.

Please find my response attached.

Yours sincerely,

Shaun Walsh MBA DMS CIHCM
Borough Transformation Manager and Deputy Director of Housing & Inclusion
West Lancashire Borough Council
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Tel: 01695 585262
Fax: 01695 585162
West Lancashire Borough Council
52 Derby St, Ormskirk. L39 2DF
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www.westlancs.gov.uk

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