Rottingdean AQMA Traffic Errors Impact Assessment

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Brighton and Hove City Council should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Background

Several errors in the Traffic Data for the Air Quality Assessment for Rottingdean AQMA were pointed out, resulting in a recent planning application ( BH2017/05330) being refused and then appealed.

Subsequently the council decided that these traffic errors "should be forwarded to the Council’s highways officers for a view... and the response received was that the issues raised ... did not alter the Highway Authority’s consultation responses on the application"

No detail was provided on which of the traffic errors the Highways Officers reviewed or how they reached their conclusions. Furthermore there is no evidence that the Highways Officers addressed the issue of impact on the Air Quality Assessment rather than just the impact on Highways (i.e. did they just consider severe residual impact as per NPPF 32?).

Request for Information.

Please list the Traffic Data errors or alleged Traffic Data errors that the Highways Officers gave their view on.

In each case, please provide a copy of the response where the Officer either stated that there was no such error, or stated that the error would not impact the Air Quality Assessment.

Will you also confirm that the response considered the cumulative as well as the individual impacts of these errors on the Air Quality Assessment.

Yours faithfully,

rob shepherd

Freedom Of Information, Brighton and Hove City Council

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Freedom of Information request
Our reference: 1719033
Your reference: [FOI #501088 email]

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1 Attachment

 
 
 
 
 
Freedom of Information request
Our reference: 1719033
Your reference: [FOI #501088 email]

show quoted sections

Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

The request was to

"... list the Traffic Data errors or alleged Traffic Data errors that the Highways Officers gave their view on".

This has not been responded to.

Earlier responses determined that the independent expert examining the appeal did not review the traffic data errors as the Highways Officer advised that the "alleged errors would not affect the determination" so information about this advice was requested.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

Mr Sherherd
 
I have passed on your clarification request to the Council Team and, to
help in providing a response, they have asked you to let us know where the
following two quotes come from please. 
 
traffic errors "should be forwarded to the Council's highways officers for
a view... and the response received was that the issues raised ... did not
alter the Highway Authority's consultation responses on the application"
 
and
 
"alleged errors would not affect the determination".
 
Yours sincerely
 
Information Compliance Officer
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Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

These comments were from various officers' meetings with counsel and with the witness, culminating with the meeting with counsel on 8thJanuary 2018

Counsel early on requested the officer's opinion ... as a result the "alleged" errors seem not to have been fully investigated by the witness.

It is accepted that the traffic errors would not result in a severe highways impact (NPPF 32), at issue is the impact on NO2 in the AQMA which is a very different consideration.

If you will provide me with a copy of the notes from all these meetings, I will point to the exact wording ... I would do it now but I can't locate my copies. Sorry.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

Dear Mr Shepherd
 
Could you provide the clarification when you are able to locate the papers
please?
 
Yours sincerely
 
Information Compliance Officer

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Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

The council's traffic expert's advice is referred to in Paragraph 37 of Cornerstone Barristers report dated 18 January 2018, though it erroneously refers to the conference meeting as being in 2017, not 2018 (Paragraph 2).

To get the fuller context I would have to submit a new FoI to obtain the records of the meetings and correspondence with the expert witness throughout 2017.

Let me know if you need that extra detail, as obviously it could take a while for the FoI request to be processed and you could obtain those documents more quickly than I can.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

Dear Mr Shepherd
 
Yes, please make a new request and we will close this one.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Information Compliance Officer

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Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

The council's traffic expert's advice is referred to in Paragraph 37 of
Cornerstone Barristers report dated 18 January 2018, though it erroneously
refers to the conference meeting as being in 2017, not 2018 (Paragraph 2).

To get the fuller context I would have to submit a new FoI to obtain the
records of the meetings and correspondence with the expert witness
throughout 2017.

Let me know if you need that extra detail, as obviously it could take a
while for the FoI request to be processed and you could obtain those
documents more quickly than I can.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

show quoted sections

Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Please do not close this request.

You have enough information already to progress this request, in terms of knowing how the council's "traffic expert" influenced this matter, an additional FoI would only be relevant if for some reason you needed to track down the exact words used and were unable to obtain the documents without an additional request.

The additional request would be additional, it would not replace this one.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

Dear Mr Shepherd
 
The option now, if you would like this request to be kept open, is for you
to request an internal review.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Information Compliance Officer 

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Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Please do not close this request.

You have enough information already to progress this request, in terms of
knowing how the council's "traffic expert" influenced this matter, an
additional FoI would only be relevant if for some reason you needed to
track down the exact words used and were unable to obtain the documents
without an additional request.

The additional request would be additional, it would not replace this one.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

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Dear Mr Shepherd,
 
We acknowledge receipt of your new FOI request 2043333 which has been
allocated to the Council's Transport Department. An acknowledgment email
has been sent to you direct from new case 2043333.
 
I have audited the various stages and correspondence in respect
of this request (1719033) with the Data Protection Manager and we have
decided to refer this to an Internal Review where the handling of this
request will be reviewed by an independent officer. You will receive
acknowledgment of this and once the review has taken place you will
receive notification of the outcome.
 
Kind regards,
 
John Hewes
Information Governance Officer

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Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Please do not close this request.

You have enough information already to progress this request, in terms of
knowing how the council's "traffic expert" influenced this matter, an
additional FoI would only be relevant if for some reason you needed to
track down the exact words used and were unable to obtain the documents
without an additional request.

The additional request would be additional, it would not replace this one.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

show quoted sections

 
 
 
 
 
Freedom of Information request
Our reference: 1719033
Your reference: [FOI #501088 email]

show quoted sections

Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Please confirm this review will not further delay my getting the requested information.

I find the service given by your officers handling Freedom of Information requests to be generally excellent and always courteous.

Where I find the service is sometimes lacking is where there is a degree of confusion about which group of council officers is responsible for what piece of information.

The blurred lines of accountability are particularly an issue when dealing with the Traffic Data used in Air Quality Assessments, the potential to fail to reroute a request efficiently after the initial assignee says it is not his area, appears to be a problem.

This problem is no doubt aggravated by shortages of skilled staff and high workloads, a self defeating situation where the failure of the original request results in the additional work of further requests. ... I recognise the problem and only do follow-up requests when necessary.

In that spirit, I see no need for you to spend valuable resource on an Internal Review of this particular case, I simply want the requested information to help me tackle a similar problem where the lines between some council officers seem to have got tangled and I would hate the resulting errors to be repeated.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

Dear Mr Shepherd,
 
Thank you for your email and confirmation that you do not wish the
Information Governance Team to carry out an Internal Review.
 
As per my previous email, I confirm that we assigned your latest FOI
request (2043333) to the Council's Transport Department.
 
We are sorry that you have so far been unable to obtain the information
you require and hope, with the additional information you have provided,
that the Transport Department will now be able to respond to your request
satisfactorily.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
John Hewes
Information Governance Offcer

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Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Please confirm this review will not further delay my getting the requested
information.

I find the service given by your officers handling Freedom of Information
requests to be generally excellent and always courteous.

Where I find the service is sometimes lacking is where there is a degree
of confusion about which group of council officers is responsible for what
piece of information.

The blurred lines of accountability are particularly an issue when dealing
with the Traffic Data used in Air Quality Assessments, the potential to
fail to reroute a request efficiently after the initial assignee says it
is not his area, appears to be a problem.

This problem is no doubt aggravated by shortages of skilled staff and high
workloads, a self defeating situation where the failure of the original
request results in the additional work of further requests. ... I
recognise the problem and only do follow-up requests when necessary.

In that spirit, I see no need for you to spend valuable resource on an
Internal Review of this particular case, I simply want the requested
information to help me tackle a similar problem where the lines between
some council officers seem to have got tangled and I would hate the
resulting errors to be repeated.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd

show quoted sections

Dear Brighton and Hove City Council,

Thank you.

As the additional information related to the council's legal officer, I am concerned that routing the request to just the Transport department may result in redirection and repetition of the delays already experienced.

Please would you also ask the legal department to respond.

Yours sincerely,

rob shepherd