Consultation on small, flatted developments in Croydon.

The request was partially successful.

Stephen Whiteside

Dear London Fire Commissioner (London Fire Brigade),

Please provide copies of any information that shows if/when the Commissioner (Brigade) has been consulted and/or made comment with regard to proposals to redevelop the following pieces of land. (I have included relevant planning and building control references).

54 Arkwright Road (Planning Application Refs: 17/03916/FUL or 18/03680/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02197/IN)

43 Downsway (Planning Application Refs: 17/05464/FUL , 18/00784/CONR or 19/00828/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02099/IN)

4 Rectory Park (Planning Application Refs: 17/00687/FUL , 18/00588/FUL or 20/00461/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02098/IN )

98 Hyde Road (Planning Application Refs: 16/05057/FUL , 17/03542/FUL or 18/03682/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02101/IN)

34 Arkwright Road (Planning Application Refs: 18/00749/FUL or 19/04165/CONR / Building Control Ref: 19/01362/IN)

22 Briton Crescent (Planning Application Ref: 18/04026/FUL / Building Control Ref: 19/02144/IN)

Yours faithfully,

Stephen Whiteside

London Fire Brigade

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for your request.

This will be considered under the Freedom on Information Act (FOIA) and we will respond as soon as we are able. Please note, given the current situation with the Coronavirus, this may be outside of the normal, expected timeframe for a FOI response.

Thank you for your patience, with kind regards

Tavell

Tavell Carter
Information Access

London Fire Brigade
169 Union Street London SE1 0LL
T 020 8555 1200 x 30314
E [email address]

london-fire.gov.uk

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Stephen Whiteside

Dear Mr Carter,

Thank you for your email and of course I understand with regard to timeframes for a response, given the problems posed by the Coronavirus.

You say that you are dealing with my request under the FOIA. However, since the information requested relates to the (safe) development of land, I believe it is likely to be information about "measures" affecting the elements of the environment as defined in Regulation 2(a) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (“EIR”). I therefore consider that this request ought more properly be dealt with under the provisions of the EIR.

In case these are useful in searching your database(s), I have listed the relevant development sites again below, but this time have included the full address and post code:
54 Arkwright Road, South Croydon, CR2 0LL
43 Downsway, South Croydon, CR2 0JB
4 Rectory Park, South Croydon, CR2 9JL
98 Hyde Road, South Croydon CR2 9NQ
34 Arkwright Road, South Croydon CR2 0LL
22 Briton Crescent, South Croydon CR2 0JF

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Whiteside

London Fire Brigade

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for your email, received on 22nd March 2020 in relation to consultation and/or comments to proposals to redevelop the following pieces of land.

In response to your request, Our Fire safety Team have provided the information below:

1. 54 Arkwright Road (Planning Application Refs: 17/03916/FUL or 18/03680/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02197/IN)
We currently hold 2 records of consultation provided for the above address, the first relates to our consultation dated 19th August 2019 at which point the commissioner confirms that they were not happy with the proposals, the second letter dated 10th March 2020 at which point the commissioner has confirmed that they were happy with the proposals. The LFB Information Access team are currently remote working due to Covid-19 restrictions. This means that we do not have access to redaction software for documents that are already in PDF form. As such, I am currently unable to provide you with the PDF copy of the letter sent to the Building control surveyor for Stroma Building Control Ltd on 19th August 2019 and 10th March 2020 as it contains third personal data that would need to be removed before issuing. If you would still like the PDF version of this letter, please could we ask you to contact us again when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

2. 43 Downsway (Planning Application Refs: 17/05464/FUL , 18/00784/CONR or 19/00828/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02099/IN)
The LFB hold no record of consultation for this address.

3. 4 Rectory Park (Planning Application Refs: 17/00687/FUL , 18/00588/FUL or 20/00461/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02098/IN )
We currently hold 2 records of consultation provided for the above address, the first relates to our consultation dated 2nd July 2019 at which point the commissioner confirms that they were not happy with the proposals provided, the second letter dated 19th August 2019 at which point the commissioner has confirmed that they were happy with the proposals. The LFB Information Access team are currently remote working due to Covid-19 restrictions. This means that we do not have access to redaction software for documents that are already in PDF form. As such, I am currently unable to provide you with the PDF copy of the letter sent to the Building control surveyor for Stroma Building Control Ltd on 2nd July 2019 and 19th August 2019 as it contains third personal data that would need to be removed before issuing. If you would still like the PDF version of this letter, please could we ask you to contact us again when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

4. 98 Hyde Road (Planning Application Refs: 16/05057/FUL , 17/03542/FUL or 18/03682/CONR / Building Control Ref: 18/02101/IN)
The LFB hold no record of consultation for this address.

5. 34 Arkwright Road (Planning Application Refs: 18/00749/FUL or 19/04165/CONR / Building Control Ref: 19/01362/IN)
We currently hold 1 record on file dated 6th September 2019, at which point the commissioner was happy with the proposals provided. The LFB Information Access team are currently remote working due to Covid-19 restrictions. This means that we do not have access to redaction software for documents that are already in PDF form. As such, I am currently unable to provide you with the PDF copy of the letter sent to the Building control surveyor for Stroma Building Control Ltd on 6th September 2019 as it contains third personal data that would need to be removed before issuing. If you would still like the PDF version of this letter, please could we ask you to contact us again when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

6. 22 Briton Crescent (Planning Application Ref: 18/04026/FUL / Building Control Ref: 19/02144/IN)
We currently hold 1 record on file dated 15th January 2020, at which point the commissioner was happy with the proposals provided. The LFB Information Access team are currently remote working due to Covid-19 restrictions. This means that we do not have access to redaction software for documents that are already in PDF form. As such, I am currently unable to provide you with the PDF copy of the letter sent to the Building control surveyor for Stroma Building Control Ltd on 15th January 2020 as it contains third personal data that would need to be removed before issuing. If you would still like the PDF version of this letter, please could we ask you to contact us again when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
I hope you find what has been provided of use, should you require further information or copies of the PDF documents please do not hesitate to contact us again when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

This request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. If you are dissatisfied by this response you can request an internal review by writing to the Head of Information Management at the address below (or email [email address])

Further information about your information rights (including how to raise a concern or make a complaint) is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office on their website at www.ico.org.uk or by writing to them at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Regards

Tavell

Tavell Carter
Information Access

London Fire Brigade
169 Union Street London SE1 0LL
T 020 8555 1200 x 30314
E [email address]

london-fire.gov.uk

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Stephen Whiteside

Dear Mr Carter

Thank you for your response of 17 April.

While I await (redacted) copies of the information, could you please check that all the correspondence has been with Stroma Building Control Ltd? (This appears to contradict information provided by others)

Additionally, could you advise as to whether all of the information upon which your comments have been made also need redacting, or whether that could be disclosed immediately?

Yours sincerely

Stephen Whiteside

London Fire Brigade

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Whiteside,

Thank you for following up in this respect and please do accept my apologies, the letters were issued to Stroma Building Control Ltd, Assent Building Control Ltd and Approved Inspector Services Ltd (depending on the site). This was a typographical error when writing up the response to you for which I am sorry.

In response to your second query as to " whether all of the information upon which your comments have been made also need redacting, or whether that could be disclosed immediately", it is my understanding that the LFB retain very little in the way of building consultation documents/plans. We do hold a record of our consultation response letter and this will either confirm that the Brigade is satisfied/not satisfied with the proposals. If the Brigade are not satisfied with the proposals then the letter will provide the reasons why. We do typically provide these to requestors under the FOIA. To clarify, it is not the content of the consultation that requires redaction but the third party personal data (such as names) included on the letters.

As we mentioned before, the LFB Information Access team are currently remote working due to Covid-19 restrictions. This means that we do not have access to redaction software for documents that are already in PDF form. We are, however, looking at work-arounds and, since our last correspondence, I have managed to extract the content of the letters issued by the LFB for the consultations. I have attached the content of these letters as a PDF ' FOIA5046.1 - Record of Consultation' as the response contains formatting (such as tables or pictures) that are not currently supported by the WhatDoTheyKnow system.

I hope you will find this of use until we are able to provide you with the PDF versions of these letters. Should you have any further questions please do let me know.

This request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. If you are dissatisfied by this response you can request an internal review by writing to the Head of Information Management at the address below (or email [email address]).

Further information about your information rights (including how to raise a concern or make a complaint) is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office on their website at www.ico.org.uk or by writing to them at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Kind regards,

Zoe

Zoe Hughes
Information Access

London Fire Brigade
169 Union Street London SE1 0LL
T 0208555 1200
E [email address]

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