Dear Cumbria County Council,

To the Cumbria County Council Information Governance Team

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

1. I am requesting all information held as to whether condition 1 of the ‪1/18‬/9012 planning consent is (or was) lawful (or unlawful) under section 73 legislation.  Please include all assessments and communications relating to the lawfulness (and/or unlawfulness) of condition 1 of ‪1/18‬/9012 under section 73 legislation made by, or communicated to/from, Cumbria County Council Development Control Officers (and/or their managers up to director level) and Cumbria County Council's Legal Officers (and/or their managers up to director level).  Please include all information held concerning the implications of the lawfulness or otherwise of condition 1.  Please include all assessments and communications even if these have since been superseded, changed or overruled.  Please include all information held on this, whether in databases, meeting minutes, emails or some other means.

2. Please indicate which of the above is Cumbria County Council's current assessment as to whether condition 1 of the ‪1/18‬/9012 planning consent as written is (or was) lawful (or unlawful) under section 73 legislation.  Based on this current assessment, please provide Cumbria County Council's current opinion on the effective lawful expiry date (the date by which development shall be begun) of the ‪1/18‬/9012 planning consent.
Please provide this information by email.
If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16 obligations of the Act, as to how I can refine my request.

Thank you for your assistance.

Yours faithfully,

Kenneth Lowe

Dear Cumbria County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Cumbria County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Incinerator planning consent documents'.

Thank you for your response dated 2 July 2020. I wish to request an internal review of Cumbria County Council's response for the following reasons:

1. Cumbria County Council's response states "Enclosed with this request are copies of emails ..." but only one email has been included. Please provide all emails and any other information relevant to my request.

2. Cumbria County Council's response included an email from the "Lead Officer" dated 17 March 2020 15:16 but no reply to this email from the "Lead Officer" was included. Please provide any reply or replies if held by Cumbria County Council.

3. I note that Cumbria County Council's response states "The redacted information is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the FOIA. Section 40(2) s ... The Council considers that a third party is identifiable from the withheld information, and it does not consider that the data subject would reasonably expect the information in question to be released". I have no wish to identify individuals. It is, however, in the public interest for Cumbria County Council to release the names of companies/organisations/public bodies that provide assessments to Cumbria County Council especially when the 1/16/9005 and 1/18/9012 planning applications received significant media interest and many objections from members of the public. Section 40(2) of the FOIA refers to "personal data" so names of third party companies/organisations/public bodies cannot be withheld under section 40(2). Please provide all information relevant to my Freedom of Information request. Personal names (and other information that would enable an individual to be identified) can be blacked-out if required by GDPR.

4. Since the 1/16/9005 and the 1/18/9012 planning applications required Environmental Impact Assessments, and since the development described by the planning applications would require an Environment Agency permit, it may be that this request should be considered under the Environmental Impact Regulations instead (or in addition) to the Freedom of Information Act regulations.

I look forward to hearing from you.
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A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Yours faithfully,

Kenneth Lowe

Dear Information Governance,

Further to my request for an internal review of Cumbria County Council's response, it has come to my attention that Cumbria County Council communicated the following in an email:

"The section 73 application, in my view, expires on 29/01/2022. Under the powers of section 73, the condition stipulating the timescales for implementation of a planning permission cannot be amended and must be repeated unchanged on the decision notice for any section 73 approval. In essence, this means the actual timescale for implementation (3 years usually), cannot be varied by this route or a longer period for implementation agreed as part of a section 73 application.
In my view, therefore, the County Council has not exceeded it powers under section 73 of the Town and County Planning Act."

I understand this communication to have taken place before Cumbria County Council's response to my request. I believe the communication shows there to be additional information that falls within the scope of our request that was not included in Cumbria County Council's response.

I request that Cumbria County Council provide all relevant information requested, including the one above, in their entirety.

Yours sincerely,

Kenneth Lowe