Questions relating to the Valley Gardens skate park

The request was successful.

Dear Harrogate Borough Council,

I am writing to you to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The information required relates to the Valley Gardens Skate Park. Some of the information I require is subsequent to correspondence I have had with Mr Patrick Kilburn, Head of Parks and Open Spaces.

1. As part of the planning application for the skate park an acoustic survey was carried out and this report was published on the HBC planning site – case number 10/04575/RG3. The survey report is unattributed. Could you tell me
a. The name of the author
b. What professional qualifications the author possess
c. Which, if any, other companies or individuals were considered before selecting this particular individual
d. What fee HBC paid for the report

2. In a letter (which is also available on the planning website) to the planning officer, Mr N Watson, dated 15 December 2010 the applicant, Mr Patrick Kilburn on behalf of HBC states “Following subsequent discussion with the Area Environmental Health Officer, it has been agreed that an additional recommendation to further appoint Mr Garritt to assess the noise mitigation measures during the build be employed as an appropriate measure.” Could you tell me
a. Is this Mr Garritt the author of the acoustic survey
b. What fee was paid for the assessment of noise mitigation measures during the build, was this on an flat fee basis or on a per hour or other basis
c. Can you provide me with all assessment documents produced by Mr Garritt during this period

3. I have been in correspondence with Mr Kilburn about the correct interpretation of section 4 of the “Bye-Laws with respect to certain pleasure grounds” produced by the Borough of Harrogate in 1956. Mr Kilburn informs me that he has sought legal advice on this matter. Could you please supply me with the full text of the advice provided to Mr Kilburn.

4. There has been some recent construction work at the skate park to provide additional hard standing and paths. In our correspondence Mr Kilburn tells me “The installation of additional paths and hard-standing was recommended by Sk8 Safe who specialise in skate park usage and the requirements set out under RoSPA are the primary consideration.” Could you tell me
a. Full details of the recommendations made by Sk8 Safe to HBC
b. What affiliation Sk8 Safe have to RoSPA
c. What qualifies Sk8 Safe to make skate park design decisions

Yours faithfully,

Patrick Wray

28-01-2014

Dear Harrogate Borough Council,

On February 28th 2014 I made a request to you under the Freedom Of Information Act 2000. As I am sure you are aware you are required to respond promptly to such requests and within 20 working days as a maximum.
Since the 20 working day maximum has expired you are now technically in breach of the FOI act.
Would you be kind enough to acknowledge receipt of this email, give a brief explanation for the delay and advise me when I can expect a response to my inquiry.

Yours faithfully,

Patrick Wray

Jayne Williams, Harrogate Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wray

I write to acknowledge receipt of this email and attach my response to your query.

Yours sincerely

jayne

Jayne Williams
Legal Services
Harrogate Borough Council
Council Offices
Crescent Gardens
Harrogate HG1 2SG
Telephone: 01423 556037
Fax: 01423 556010
[email address]

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Jayne Williams, Harrogate Borough Council

5 Attachments

Dear Mr Wray

 

Further to my letter to you of yesterday, I now attach the additional
response as promised.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Jayne Williams

 

 

Jayne Williams

Legal Services

Harrogate Borough Council

Council Offices

Crescent Gardens

Harrogate HG1 2SG

Telephone: 01423 556037

Fax: 01423 556010

[email address]

 

 

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Dear Jayne Williams,

Thank you for the documents and answers you have supplied.

However, question 1(c) states "Which, if any, other companies or individuals were considered before selecting this particular individual". You have supplied me with a general list of companies and the simple statement "Three consultancies were approached." Could you please let me know which consultancies these were. I would welcome any copies of correspondence between HBC and the consultancies concerned.

Yours sincerely,

Patrick Wray

Jayne Williams, Harrogate Borough Council

I am currently away from the office and shall be returning on Monday 3
March  2014  In the meantime, if it is urgent, please readdress your
query  to:  Rich Kemp   (ext 56148)  otherwise I will deal with your query
upon my return.

 

 

Jayne Williams

Legal Assistant

Legal Services

Harrogate Borough Council

[1][email address]

Direct Dial: 01423 556037

Direct Fax: 01423 556010

DX 11962 Harrogate

 

 

 

 

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Jayne Williams, Harrogate Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wray

The initial contact with companies was by telephone in order to further ascertain their experience in acoustic surveys at outdoor leisure facilities. I attach a scanned copy of the list from the hard copy file relating to the skatepark. On this list the companies contacted have been marked and some notes of the findings from the telephone conversation have been made. Steve Garritt had carried out a similar survey at (at least) one other skatepark, none of the other consultancies contacted had carried out similar surveys.

Yours sincerely

Jayne Williams

Jayne Williams
Legal Services
Harrogate Borough Council
Council Offices
Crescent Gardens
Harrogate HG1 2SG
Telephone: 01423 556037
Fax: 01423 556010
[email address]

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Dear Harrogate Borough Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Harrogate Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Questions relating to the Valley Gardens skate park'.

I wish to request an internal review of your decision not to disclose the information requested in request 3. There are a number of grounds on which I base my appeal.

The required information, the legal advice provided to Mr Kilburn is no longer covered by legal professional privilege. As you are no doubt aware the privilege belongs to the client and the client may choose to waive that privilege. In an email to me dated 17th December 2013 Mr Kilburn quoted directly from the advice given to him thereby waiving the privilege. Following the principle of indivisibility of waiver the disclosure of part of a document constitutes a waiver of privilege in respect of the whole contents of that document. It could be argued that you should release the information I have requested on this ground alone.

You rightly point out that EIR12(4)(e) states that an authority may refuse to disclose information if it involves internal communication. However, EIR12(2) states that an authority shall apply a presumption in favour of disclosure. Quite clearly “Shall” is a much stronger word than “May” so you must justify your decision to withhold data under EIR12(4)(e) on a case by case basis. You have not provided any reason relevant to this request for not disclosing the information. Your argument is simply “the law states that we MAY withhold data therefore we SHALL withhold data”. To comply with the spirit of EIR12 you must provide a reason why internal communication should prevent release of the requested information in this case or you must disclose the information.

So we are left with the public interest argument. Harrogate Borough Council is the body responsible for drawing up the set of bylaws known as “Bylaws relating to certain pleasure grounds”. HBC are also the body responsible for any prosecutions that are brought under these bylaws. Quite clearly any citizen who wishes to avoid committing an offence under the bylaws must be able to know what the bylaw actually means. Let me quote from the part of the document that Mr Kilburn has already divulged to me

“As ever with these things as time passes and apparatus evolves, it can be said that the byelaws now seem poorly drafted and do lead to ambiguity and the possibility of different interpretations.”

So Harrogate Borough Council and I agree that the bylaw in question is ambiguous. What I am seeking is the full, unadulterated interpretation of the bylaw that was provided to Mr Kilburn. It would seem extremely perverse to suggest that it is in the public interest for HBC to be responsible for a bylaw but not be prepared to share with the public how they intend to interpret that bylaw.

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 faithfully,

Patrick Wray

Foi, Harrogate Borough Council

Dear Mr Wray

I write to acknowledge receipt of your email of yesterday and would confirm that it is being passed on to the person who conducts FOI reviews.

Yours sincerely

Jayne Williams

Jayne Williams
Legal Services
Harrogate Borough Council
Council Offices
Crescent Gardens
Harrogate HG1 2SG
Telephone: 01423 556037
Fax: 01423 556010
[email address]

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Jayne Williams, Harrogate Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wray

 

I refer to your request for a review of the Council’s decision not to
disclose email communications between our Legal Team and Mr Kilburn in
connection with Byelaws and the Skatepark in Valley Gardens. The Council
has a formal appeal process but to avoid use of very scarce resources your
request has been considered informally at this stage.

I am aware that you have served several requests for information and have
had communications with Mr Kilburn on the issue of the skatepark for some
time . I hope that you are generally happy with how your various queries
and requests for information have been dealt with by Mr Kilburn or members
of his team . You should note that  the Parks and Legal  Teams are
extremely busy on other pressing matters which are taking priority so
responses my not be as quick as we would have liked.

Turning to your request for a review you should note that there are 2
emails which contain advice/comments from the Legal team on the subject
and after reading both it has been decided to disclose these to you.
Please note that the Council  will not enter into protracted
correspondence with you on this subject because as I have said earlier
there are other pressing matters which are taking priority.

The 2 emails are attached.

  

Yours sincerely

 

Jayne Williams

Legal Services

Harrogate Borough Council

Council Offices

Crescent Gardens

Harrogate HG1 2SG

Telephone: 01423 556037

Fax: 01423 556010

[email address]

 

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