Falling Masonry

The request was refused by Argyll and Bute Council.

Dear Argyll and Bute Council,

Please provide the number of instances of falling masonry from buildings in your council area within the last five years.

For each incident, please provide any detail you have, including the address of the building that shed masonry, what action was taken to rectify the problem, and whether any injuries, deaths or full/partial road/street closures occurred as a result.

Thanks for your help,

Jamie Mann

Administrator,


Dear Jamie Mann

Request for information: Dangerous Buildings - Masonry

Thank you for your information request which we have logged as reference
argyllbuteir:11841.

It has been passed to the relevant service(s) for attention and you should
receive a response under either the Freedom of Information (Scot) Act 2002
or the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 by 2020-08-28
00:00:00. We hope to respond within this timescale but, due to the
staffing/capacity issues with COVID-19, some requests may take little
longer.

Please quote the reference number above in any correspondence you may have
with the Council in regard to this request.

Regards

FOI Officer

Privacy information: Any personal information you have provided in
relation to this request will be used only for the intended purpose -
please read the full privacy notice to find out more about how your
personal information will be handled, and your rights under data
protection legislation.

DIS Performance HQ, Argyll and Bute Council

1 Attachment

Classification: OFFICIAL

Dear Mr Mann,

 

Request for information: Data on Falling Masonry

Reference: argyllbuteir: 11841

 

I refer to your request for information which was dealt with in terms of
the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs).

 

Please see below information in fulfilment of your request.

 

Our Building Standards team do not hold the information requested in such
a way as to make it readily available. We have identified 411 files which
may hold relevant data. In order to retrieve the data we would need to
examine every file to determine if the information is relevant to your
request. We estimate that it would take approximately 10 minutes to
examine each file. In addition it would then be necessary to consult the
Roads Dept to find out if a road closure was required in each case.
Allowing 10 minutes per file, we estimate the cost to the Council of
searching for the information would be £1,027.50 (based on an hourly rate
of £15). Therefore your request is refused under Regulation 10(4)(b) of
the EIRs on the basis that it is manifestly unreasonable. The information
can be provided if payment of the above amount is agreed. Should this be
the case, please let me know and I will arrange for an invoice to be
issued to you.

If you are dissatisfied with the way in which your request for information
has been dealt with you are entitled to request a review by writing to the
Executive Director Customer Services, Argyll and Bute Council, Kilmory,
Lochgilphead, Argyll PA31 8RT, or by email to [1][Argyll and Bute Council request email].

 

Your request for review must state your name and address for
correspondence, specify the request for information to which your request
for review relates and why you are dissatisfied with the response. 

 

You must make your request for review not later than 40 working days after
the expiry of the 20 working day period for response to your initial
request by the Council, or not later than 40 working days after the
receipt by you of the information provided, any fees notice issued or any
notification of refusal or partial refusal.

 

If you make an application for review and remain dissatisfied with the way
in which the review has been dealt with you are entitled to make an
application to the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle,
Doubledykes Road, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9DS (Tel: 01334 464610) for a
further review. You can now do this online here -
[2]www.itspublicknowledge.info/Appeal.

 

You must make representation to the Scottish Information Commissioner no
later than 6 months after the date of receipt by you of the notice or
decision you are dissatisfied with or within 6 months of the expiry of the
period of 20 working days from receipt by the Council of your request for
review.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Ailsa Barr

Roads and Infrastructure Services

Argyll and Bute Council

01546 605514

 

[3]http://intranet.argyll-bute.gov.uk/sites...

 

Please note that your details, including any personal information you may
have provided, will be passed to the relevant service mentioned above.  A
full privacy notice can be found on our website, which explains what we
will do with your personal information and what your rights are under Data
Protection legislation.  [4]https://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/data-prot...

 

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Dear DIS Performance HQ,

Please could you advise how I might be able to narrow my request in order to make it less costly to the council? Would removing the need to search for information regarding road closures help, for example?

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Mann

DIS Performance HQ, Argyll and Bute Council

1 Attachment

Classification: OFFICIAL

Hi Jamie,

 

I'm just consulting with the Building Standards team and will come back to
you as soon as possible.

 

Regards,

 

Ailsa

 

Ailsa Barr

Administrative Support Officer

Roads and Infrastructure Services

Argyll and Bute Council

[1][email address]

 

[2]www.argyll-bute.gov.uk  'Realising our potential together'

 

[3]http://intranet.argyll-bute.gov.uk/sites...

 

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Hi Ailsa,

Please can you update me on the above, overdue request?

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Mann

DIS Performance HQ, Argyll and Bute Council

1 Attachment

Classification: OFFICIAL

Hi Jamie,

 

I'm very sorry for the long delay - you should have a response by
Wednesday this week.

 

Regards,

 

Ailsa

 

Ailsa Barr

Administrative Support Officer

Roads and Infrastructure Services

Argyll and Bute Council

[1][email address]

 

[2]www.argyll-bute.gov.uk  'Realising our potential together'

 

[3]http://intranet.argyll-bute.gov.uk/sites...

 

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DIS Performance HQ, Argyll and Bute Council

1 Attachment

Classification: OFFICIAL

Hi Jamie,

 

Apologies again for the delay in responding. Building Standards have
advised that removing the Roads element from the request will not make any
difference as they would still need to check all 411 files to see if they
hold any relevant information. We would only need to consult with Roads
where a case of falling masonry was found within the files.

 

I'm sorry we haven't been able to assist.

 

Regards,

 

 

Ailsa Barr

Administrative Support Officer

Roads and Infrastructure Services

Argyll and Bute Council

[1][email address]

 

[2]www.argyll-bute.gov.uk  'Realising our potential together'

 

[3]http://intranet.argyll-bute.gov.uk/sites...

 

 

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Hi Ailsa,

I was wondering if I would be able to find any of the information myself using the buildings standards register?

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Mann

DIS Performance HQ, Argyll and Bute Council

1 Attachment

Classification: OFFICIAL

Hi Jamie,

 

I'm afraid it would be difficult - in accordance with the Building
Standards Handbook, only Part I of the Building Standards Register is
published online and this is limited in scope in terms of the data which
is made available. More information about that is here:
[1]https://www.gov.scot/publications/proced....

 

Even finding relevant cases online would be difficult because it depends
what is included in the summary of the entry. You could search for
keywords included in the summary e.g. "masonry" and this would bring up
every entry with that keyword in the summary. Not all would relate to
falling masonry, and some cases which did involve falling masonry might
not have that included in the summary so wouldn't appear in the search
results. Even if you identified relevant entries, they would not contain
all of the data you have requested.

 

You could do an advanced search for all notices issued to defective
buildings, but unless “falling masonry”, or something similar, has been
entered into the summary you would not know whether they were relevant.

 

This is the difficulty we have, and the reason why we would have to search
each individual file to try and identify the cases which may have involved
falling masonry.

 

Regards,

 

Ailsa

 

Ailsa Barr

Administrative Support Officer

Roads and Infrastructure Services

Argyll and Bute Council

[2][email address]

 

[3]www.argyll-bute.gov.uk  'Realising our potential together'

 

[4]http://intranet.argyll-bute.gov.uk/sites...

 

 

 

 

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No worries Ailsa, thanks for explaining!

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Mann