Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

As part of your response to another EIR request -
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...
you said -
‘Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) are only required to market / let a property. When negotiating a lease extension with an existing tenant, an EPC is not legally required under EPC Regulations. There is no requirement to obtain a new EPC if it expires during an ongoing tenancy and there are no plans to market the property.’

This may or may not also have informed your responses here –
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

I have already highlighted to you the still live government webpage with guidance on the minimum energy efficiency standard for non-domestic property -
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/non-domestic...
and that part of which that says –
‘From 1 April 2023, the requirement for non-domestic landlords to obtain at least an EPC E rating, unless they have registered a valid exemption, applies to all privately rented non-domestic properties (even where there has been no change in tenancy).’

This apparently has no effect on your responses.

I am confused by the friction between that guidance and what you have told me.

Please provide –
1 the number of non-domestic properties relating to which you have taken any action informally or formally against their landlords for failure to have at least an EPC E rating where there has been no change of tenancy, and the number of landlords involved, all since 1st April 2023

2 all information held relating to the accuracy or the inaccuracy of the issue referred to in that part of this guidance which says even where there has been no change in tenancy –
‘From 1 April 2023, the requirement for non-domestic landlords to obtain at least an EPC E rating, unless they have registered a valid exemption, applies to all privately rented non-domestic properties (even where there has been no change in tenancy).’

3 all information held relating to Wirral Council enforcing or not enforcing the requirement from 1 April 2023, for non-domestic landlords to obtain at least an EPC E rating in relation to properties where there has been no change in tenancy.

4 all information held relating to Wirral Council when acting as a landlord of non-domestic property, complying or not complying with the requirement from 1 April 2023 to obtain at least an EPC E rating in relation to properties where there has been no change in tenancy.

5 all information held relating to Wirral Council being a tenant of any non-domestic property, for which its landlord does not comply with the requirement from 1 April 2023 to obtain at least an EPC E rating in relation to properties where there has been no change in tenancy.

Yours faithfully,

John Jones

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts EIR reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council's handling of my EIR request 'EIR request, EPC MEES requirements and enforcement non-domestic property Wirral Council'.

REASONS -
It is now 23 working days since my EIR request and you have not responded in any way.

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

Yours faithfully,

John Jones

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

Still no response or internal review.

Yours faithfully,

John Jones

Dear Lynette Paterson,

As has happened a number of times with your responses in the past you have included a bad link.

I assume you meant to link this

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...

I am unable to properly consider the contents of your duplicated Refusal Notice against the referenced requests of mine until you re-issue it correcting your failures within it to comply with the EIR requirements for Refusal Notices.

Under EIR Regulation 14(2) your Refusal Notice should have been issued as soon as possible and no later than 20 working days after the date of receipt of each request.

Putting aside the validity of the Refusal Notice at all against that delay, you have anyway in your balancing assessment for each request not specified that you have not taken into account matters beyond 20 working days after the relevant request.

And since those requests were not all made at the same time the balancing assessments should differ rather than being duplicated in a single letter.

Your Refusal Notice also does not comply with EIR Regulation 14(5)(a) or 15(5)(b) as it is required to.

Please re-issue EIR compliant Refusal Notices for these requests.

Only once you have done so will I be able to properly consider their contents which among other matters I see currently includes no reference in the balancing assessment to your incorrect reliance upon pseudonym claims for responding to EIR requests and for the ICO powers, and anyway also for my FOI requests your failure to give me any information at all on your reasons for suspecting pseudonym despite repeated requests.

Separately please ensure by way of complaint validly presented here to you as a representative of the council, that the task force set up to review the handling of information complaints as a result of the recent birkenhead market report receives a link to this entire thread on whatdotheyknow and to my history of requests so that their work is fully informed
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/john...

Yours sincerely,

John Jones

Dear Lynette Paterson,

Still no response.

Yours sincerely,

John Jones