Contact between NRW and Biomass No 2
Dear Natural Resources Wales,
I am writing to make an open government request for all the information to which I am entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please send me all documentation in relation to discussions and meetings with the operator and/or developer or any person on behalf of the operator and/or developer of the biomass plant on Woodham Road, Barry including emails, letters, minutes, instructions to NRW officers and reports by NRW officers and all other documents for the years 2017 and 2018.
If this request is too wide or unclear, I would be grateful if you could contact me as I understand that under the Act, you are required to advise and assist requesters. If any of this information is already in the public domain, please can you direct me to it, with page references and URLs if necessary.
If the release of any of this information is prohibited on the grounds of breach of confidence, I ask that you supply me with copies of the confidentiality agreement and remind you that information should not be treated as confidential if such an agreement has not been signed.
Please also consider this request under the Environmental Permitting Regulations insofar as any information may be withheld by you under the FOI.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours faithfully,
Dennis Clarke
Diolch ichi am eich cais am wybodaeth. Pwrpas yr e-bost hwn yw cydnabod
ein bod wedi derbyn eich cais.
Bydd y Tîm Mynediad at Wybodaeth yn ymateb i'ch cais cyn gynted ag y bo
modd, a dim hwyrach nag 20 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl derbyn eich cais.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your request for information, this email is to acknowledge
that we have received your request.
The Access to Information Team will respond to your request as soon as
possible and no later than 20 working days from when we received your
request.
Dear Mr Clarke,
Thank you for your recent request for information.
This request has been allocated Access to Information Request Number ATI-17012a.
Natural Resources Wales will respond to your request for information in line with the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) 2004.
We will respond to your request as soon as possible and no later than 20 working days from when we received your request. We will contact you as soon as possible should we need to clarify your request. Any information that takes less than 2 ½ days to compile will be free. If it takes longer than this we will consult you before taking further action.
We will be retaining your personal details along with your request in a database for the purpose of recording progress and monitoring our performance Any Information disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) or Environmental Information Regulations (2004) will be listed in the Natural Resources Wales disclosure log on our web site.
We will only use this personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation to deal with your request and any matters that arise from it.
If you have any further queries or concerns please contact [email address]. See our Privacy Policy which describes how we collect use and share your information.
If you have any further queries or concerns please contact us on the details below. I would be grateful if you would use the ATI Request number in all future correspondence.
Regards,
Access to Information Team
Dear Dennis,
All information is in the public domain and we have shared all this information previously, it can be accessed through the following link - https://naturalresourceswales.sharefile.... all meeting infromation would be under the General folder.
Regards
Access to information team
Dear Natural Resources Body for Wales,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Natural Resources Body for Wales's handling of my FOI request 'Contact between NRW and Biomass No 2'.
1 First of all the way in which NRW purported to give the information is a classic example of 'hiding in full view' as there is a lot of material that does not fit the request
2 secondly the information is not in date order and this makes it time consuming to check your disclosure and to be sure something is not missed
3 I cannot see that there is disclosure of meetings with or obo the Operator/developer including and not limited to the meetings in December 2017 onwards.
I would appreciate a full review and to be advised as to the person(s) who were responsible for assisting your department in claiming full disclosure has been given in the event that you find there were 'errors' in this assertion.
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,
Dennis Clarke
Dear Access to Information Team,
I do not yet have an acknowledgement or other response to the request for a review.
could you kindly update me on this.
Yours sincerely,
Dennis Clarke
Dear Mr Clarke,
Apologies if an e-mail was not received I can confirm that we are reviewing your request.
Regards
Access to Information team.
Dear Mr Clarke,
Please see attached response from NRW.
Regards
Nerys Griffith
Swyddog Mynediad at Wybodaeth/ Access to Information Officer
Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru/ Natural Resources Wales
Ffôn / Tel. : 03000654906
E-bost / E-mail : [email address]
Gwefan/Website:www.cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk/www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk
Dear Access to Information Team,
Would you be kind enough to confirm that NRW says this is full disclosure of the material requested.
In particular please confirm that Caitriona Harvey is satisfied all is included as I believe there is material missing.
Yours sincerely,
Dennis Clarke
Dear Natural Resources Body for Wales,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Natural Resources Body for Wales's handling of my FOI request 'Contact between NRW and Biomass No 2'.
I indicated i did not believe full disclosure was given and suggested a route to follow to establish if this was the case but nothing happened
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,
Dennis Clarke
Dear Dennis,
I have just seen that we have an outstanding review request logged on our system I can see that we have sent you 2 responses (attached for info) Could you please confirm that you are satisfied that your request has been answered fully, I can confirm that NRW has sent all the information that is available for the time period you requested.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
Nerys Griffith
Cynghorydd Cyswllt Cyfoeth / Customer Hub Advisor
Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru/ Natural Resources Wales
Ffôn / Tel. : 03000654906
E-bost / E-mail : [email address]
Gwefan/Website:www.cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk/www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk
Dear Nerys
Thank you for your enquiry for clarification.
Some of the emails supplied make reference to meetings between NRW and the developer and/or the developers agents. The documents created as a result of those meetings including agendas, minutes, action sheets or actions etc are not included notwithstanding they were covered by the original enquiry. There are also emails missing passing between the developer and Ms Harvey (and perhaps others?) which is considered to be significant as one such email refers to managing the public perception (this seems therefore to be a continuing ambition on the part of NRW).
Would you be so kind as to bring to the attention of the relevant dept and officers that they disclosed insufficient material and the circumstances of this are, to say the least, unfortunate as others in the Barry area might think it was deliberate.
I look forward to hearing from you again.
Yours sincerely,
Dennis Clarke
Diolch ichi am eich cais am wybodaeth. Pwrpas yr e-bost hwn yw cydnabod
ein bod wedi derbyn eich cais.
Bydd y Tîm Mynediad at Wybodaeth yn ymateb i'ch cais cyn gynted ag y bo
modd, a dim hwyrach nag 20 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl derbyn eich cais.
Croesewir gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg a byddwn yn ymateb yn Gymraeg, heb i hynny
arwain at oedi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your request for information, this email is to acknowledge
that we have received your request.
The Access to Information Team will respond to your request as soon as
possible and no later than 20 working days from when we received your
request.
Correspondence in Welsh is welcomed and we will respond in Welsh without
it leading to a delay.
Hi Dennis,
I have spoken to Ms Harvey, and she will look into this matter again and resend all the information that her team holds, apologies this will take more time. I will be in touch once they have searched all records and I can send them on to you.
Kind Regards
Nerys Griffith
Cynghorydd Cyswllt Cyfoeth / Customer Hub Advisor
Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru/ Natural Resources Wales
Ffôn / Tel. : 03000654906
E-bost / E-mail : [email address]
Gwefan/Website:www.cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk/www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk
Dear Dennis,
As my last e-mail stated that Ms Harvey and her team wanted to go through all correspondence again to make sure that nothing was missed please see link to folder where all information from Ms Harvey's team is.
https://naturalresourceswales.sharefile.... Please note this link will expire in 60 days and you should download and save all contents.
We hope you find this information useful.
Kind Regards
Nerys Griffith
Cynghorydd Cyswllt Cyfoeth / Customer Hub Advisor
Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru/ Natural Resources Wales
Ffôn / Tel. : 03000654906
E-bost / E-mail : [email address]
Gwefan/Website:www.cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk/www.naturalresourceswales.gov.uk
Rights of appeal
If you are not satisfied with our response to your request, you can contact us to ask for our decision to be reviewed, please write to:
Tracey Gilliland
Lead Specialist Advisor Information Management and Security
Natural Resources Wales
[email address]
If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator for Freedom of Information. The address is: Office of the Information Commissioner,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Tel: 0303 123 113
Fax: 01625 524 510.
E-mail: [email address].
Website: http//www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Dear Access to Information Team/Nerys
thank you for the link but on the face of it nothing has changed. Have the 'meetings docs' been included as all that is in the zip file downloaded is outlook items which did not previously address the main part of my request but did emphasise a failure to deal with the request.
I do not want to have to specify what documents should be released as it is only NRW officers that have access to the material and any attempt by me to give a list would be completely otiose.
Could you therefore enquire whether there was any change to the documentation as at present I am concerned that the paperwork requested is not included and all that I really have is a load of material to confuse the position and obfuscate the discussion.
Sorry to be so negative but this is dragging on and the impression is that NRW is refusing the request. If that is the case can you get the relevant officer to say so in order that we can move on to the next level?
thank you for your continuing attempts.
Yours sincerely,
Dennis Clarke
Dear Mr Clarke,
Hope you are keeping well, thank you for your email dated 3^rd March,
apologies for the time it has taken me to respond.
Your original request was as follows - Please send me all documentation in
relation to discussions and meetings with the operator and/or developer or
any person on behalf of the operator and/or developer of the biomass plant
on Woodham Road, Barry including emails, letters, minutes, instructions to
NRW officers and reports by NRW officers and all other documents for the
years 2017 and 2018.
I have investigated and spoken to the teams involved and NRW have sent all
documents and correspondence that we hold and can confirm that we do not
hold any minutes of the meetings (the meeting was summarised in an email
which we have provided) Therefore Regulation 12(4)(a) Environmental
Information Regulations (2004) applies. Information not held.
Kind Regards
Delyth Hughes
Delyth Hughes
Cynghorydd Cyswllt Cyfoeth/Customer Hub Advisor
Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru/Natural Resources Wales
Ffon/Tel: 03000654871
Siaradwyr Cymraeg
Eich Swyddfa/Your office – Bangor
Oriau Swyddfa – Dydd LLun o Dydd Iau/Office hours – Monday to Thursday
[1]www.cyfoethnaturiol.cymru / [2]www.naturalresources.wales
Yn falch o arwain y ffordd at ddyfodol gwell i Gymru trwy reoli’r
amgylchedd ac adnoddau naturiol yn gynaliadwy.
Proud to be leading the way to a better future for Wales by managing the
environment and natural resources sustainably.
[3]https://cyfoethnaturiolcymru.sharepoint....
References
Visible links
1. http://www.cyfoethnaturiol.cymru/?lang=cy
2. https://www.naturalresources.wales/?lang...
3. https://www.facebook.com/NatResWales
4. https://twitter.com/NatResWales
5. https://www.youtube.com/user/NatResWales
6. https://www.flickr.com/people/natreswales/
We work to defend the right to FOI for everyone
Help us protect your right to hold public authorities to account. Donate and support our work.
Donate Now