Public Space Protection Orders
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please treat this request for information as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please provide the following information:
All current and draft Public Space Protection Orders by Oxford City Council. Alternatively, if this information is publicly available online, please simply provide a link to the information.
Thank you. I look forward to your reply.
Yours faithfully,
P Smith
Dear Mr Smith,
Thank you for your email. Your request was received on 26 November 2015 and you will receive a response within 20 working days, as required under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Yours sincerely
Merilyn
Hello,
Thank you for your email. I believe the information you require can be found on our website, here:
http://www.oxford.gov.uk/PageRender/decC...
As such, I consider that the exemption under Section 21 of The Freedom of Information Act 2000 - which provides for material that is reasonably accessible by other means - applies in this instance.
If you disagree with any part of the response to your request, you are entitled to ask the Council for an internal review of the decision(s) made. You may do this by writing to the Monitoring Officer, by either email – [email address] – or by post to Monitoring Officer, Oxford City Council, St Aldate’s Chambers, St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1DS. After the result of the internal review, if you remain dissatisfied, you may ask the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf. You may do this by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Merilyn
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Public Space Protection Orders'.
I asked for all current and draft PSPOs. You referred me to a link on your web site that only included current PSPOs. Today an article was published regarding a draft PSPO for Oxford's waterways here http://m.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/14308843....
This draft PSPO was in draft form at the time of my initial request because an officer of Canal & River Trust referred to it in correspondence before that date.
Please provide an explanation of why you did not release the draft in response to my request.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...
Thank you. I look forward to your reply within 40 days.
Yours faithfully,
P Smith
Dear DAVIES Merilyn,
Further to my request for internal review of the above request, I can confirm that on 3rd March 2015, over one year ago, an officer of Canal & River Trust stated in a meeting of the Bath and NE Somerset Council River Task Group that "suggested that another solution to the issue could be implementing a Public Space Protection Order, new legislation being adopted by Oxford Council". The Minutes of that meeting record the action as: "MS to send SM a reference/copy of Oxford’s Public Space Protection Order".
Therefore it follows that the draft of the Public Space Protection Order in question was in draft form in March 2015.
Thank you. I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
P Smith
Dear Mr Smith,
Thank you for your email. I have passed this to our monitoring officer and they will be in touch in due course.
Best wishes
Merilyn
P Smith left an annotation ()
Oxford City Council's failure to respond to my request for internal review has now been referred to the Information Commissioner.
Dear Ms Smith,
I am writing further to your correspondence with the Information
Commissioner (ICO ref: FER0628112) in relation to your request on 26^th
November 2015 for a copy of a draft Waterways PSPO.
Before the summer of 2015 officers of the Oxford City Council gave initial
consideration to the possibility of a Public Spaces Protection Order
(PSPO) being created to allow for management of the waterways in Oxford.
It was one of a number of options that were examined to deal with a
variety of unauthorised mooring and antisocial behaviour issues affecting
the waterways within the city.
Comments were sought from the many stakeholders, primarily the riparian
owners, by the Council’s Green Space Development Manager on what might be
included in such an order. The several interested parties were asked for
their views and a number of meetings did take place. Copies of the
documents prepared during that stage are attached for information. The
documents have been redacted to remove the personal information of third
parties.
Work on the initial proposals stopped in the summer of 2015 because the
Council had decided that work on a PSPO for the city centre should be
given priority. Therefore, a draft PSPO in relation to the waterways was
not produced by the council for formal consultation.
However, after the conclusion of the work on and introduction of the city
centre PSPO, efforts were again focused on producing a PSPO to cover the
waterways. At its meeting on 17^th March 2016 the Council’s City Executive
Board resolved to approve the draft Waterways PSPO for formal
consultation. The draft was duly prepared in the weeks preceding the March
meeting of the City Executive Board. It was made available for
consultation on 25^th May 2016.
I have made arrangements for the information attached to be posted on the
Council’s website as a matter of urgency.
I hope that this information is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Emma Griffiths, for and on behalf of the Head of Law & Governance
Emma Griffiths | Lawyer | Law & Governance | Oxford City Council | St
Aldate's Chambers | St Aldate’s | Oxford OX1 1DS | DX 4309 Oxford 1 |
01865 252208
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Boatlass left an annotation ()
I think it might be time to go directly to the Information Commissioners. They are clearly not interested in self-regulation at OCC.