Dear Sir/Madam

Could you please provide me with copies of all emails (inc attachments), letters, reports and other documentation etc sent to/from/within the DfT since 11th February 2019 relating to Queensbury Tunnel.

To help reduce the workload involved in dealing with this request, where relevant material is identified which the Department reasonably believes might fall under exemptions 35 (formulation of Government policy), 42 (legal professional privilege) or 43 (commercial interests) of the FoI Act, I am content for that material to be redacted without a public interest test being undertaken as long as the redacted material is still included within the final response.

Yours faithfully

Graeme Bickerdike

Dear Sir/Madam

I am writing to ask for an Internal Review into the Department for Transport’s response to my Freedom of Information request, reference F0017677, submitted on 13th August.

In your reply of 10th September, you state that the DfT “considers the request is vexatious” and that my “past behaviour in submitting requests and correspondence on the matter of the Queensbury Tunnel suggests that a detailed response would only serve to encourage follow up requests.”

As you will be aware, the issues around Queensbury Tunnel are live, fluid and of considerable public interest, with almost 3,800 objections to the planning application for its proposed abandonment and more than 11,800 signatories to an ePetition seeking its reopening as a cycle route.

If planning permission is granted, it is likely that around £6 million of taxpayers’ money will be spent on abandonment, around £2 million of which has arisen directly as the result of a failure to pay the £50 annual rent on a pumping station. Abandonment - the stated grounds for which are not supported by any meaningful technical evidence - puts permanently beyond use an asset which has the potential to deliver significant social, economic and tourism benefits to the area around Bradford/Halifax/Keighley. It should therefore be recognised that abandonment would have real long-term impacts on future sustainable transport provision locally; it also runs contrary to both national and local planning policies.

It is therefore entirely reasonable that ongoing discussions and decision-making around Queensbury Tunnel are open to public scrutiny and I regard my requests under the Freedom of Information Act to be justified in respect of its overarching intent, i.e. “making public bodies more transparent and accountable.”

That said, I remain conscious of the potential impacts my requests for correspondence [could] have on workload within the Department; as a result, I only make them once every six months, each one covering a unique time period.

It should also be recognised that, in my email to Sam Buckmaster of 3rd July, I made clear that “I would be very happy to consider any proposal from the Department by which a means is established of obtaining the relevant information in a manner that minimises “disruption, irritation or distress”.” I did not receive any response to this suggestion.

Furthermore, in submitting my latest request, I made an effort to reduce the resulting workload by stating that “where relevant material is identified which the Department reasonably believes might fall under exemptions 35 (formulation of Government policy), 42 (legal professional privilege) or 43 (commercial interests) of the FoI Act, I am content for that material to be redacted without a public interest test being undertaken…”

As suggested, I have read the ICO guidance on dealing with vexatious requests. I am not clear how any objective assessment could conclude that my requests are “manifestly unjustified, inappropriate or improper use of a formal procedure” (see Para 18) or that they have “no reasonable foundation” (see Para 20).

I look forward to hearing the outcome of the Internal Review.

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

Yours sincerely

Graeme Bickerdike