What were WMBC's reasons for not making brownfield land available in favour of green-belt?

The request was partially successful.

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

Could you please provide me with copies of ANY and ALL correspondence (for clarification, I mean letters, e-mails, minutes of meetings,noted telephone communications etc) between WMBC and MFRS/MFRA with regard to Frankby Road, Greasby being put forward by WMBC as potentially available land for a proposed fire station and later being made unavailable by WMBC.

I am aware that this site is no longer available to MFRS/MFRA and that it required a Freedom of Information Review before WMBC finally admitted, "... that the leader of the Council had confirmed that the land would not be made available [to MFRS/MFRA] should a formal request be made."

I request you supply me with ANY and ALL reasons given by, or questions requested of, the leader, or any other member of the Council, concerning this land becoming unavailable.

Yours faithfully,

kim nowell

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

The issue of WMBC identifying, a suitable brownfield site to MFRS for development, then withdrawing it before the consultation period had ended has raised many questions . The reasons why WMBC would do this only to identify publicly amenable green-belt land to MFRS as a potential development site raised further questions and concerns. That this land has still not been withdrawn by WMBC following the 'consultation' period despite local resistance, inevitably raises, not only yet more questions and concerns, but fear, insecurity and a lack of faith and confidence in the decision making processes of WMBC.

In the interests of openness and transparency, particularly on such a controversial issue, I would have thought that WMBC would have provided this information promptly. Yet you have failed to respond even within the legal time limit required.

Yours faithfully,

kim nowell

InfoMgr, FinDMT,

4 Attachments

Good Morning

 

Thank you for your recent request which has been processed under the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004..

 

Please find attached scanned copies of the requested correspondence
between the Council and Mersey Fire & Rescue Authority on this issue.

 

In accordance with Regulation 10 of the legislation, to provide you with
further information the Council’s Head of Universal & Infrastructure
Services David Armstrong attended the three public meetings organised by
Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service regarding the Saughall Massie site, and
answered questions regarding why the Greasby site was withdrawn from
consideration. Minutes of these meetings are not held by the Council, but
would be available from MFRS. Details of how to get in touch with them can
be found on their website at [1]this link.

 

Kind regards

 

Sent on behalf of

 

Tracy O'Hare

Information Management

Transformation and Resources

Wirral Council

 

This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be
protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to
use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you
are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for
example commercial publication, would require our specific permission, may
involve licensing and the application of a charge.

[2]cid:image002.jpg@01D066DD.D7571B40

 

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InfoMgr, FinDMT,

Good Morning

Thank you for your email.

Due to the size of the documents attached to the Council's response sent yesterday, the email was delayed until after 6pm to avoid placing undue demand on the Council's IT system (this is the case with all large outgoing attachments).

Neither the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations stipulate at what time a request can be submitted or a response sent (i.e. 9am to 5pm), only the day it is received or responded to.

Should you wish to ask for an internal review of the handling of your request you have the right under Reg.11 of the EIRs. To do so please contact [Wirral Borough Council request email] detailing which aspects of the Council's response you are dissatisfied with.

Kind regards,

Sent on behalf of

Tracy O'Hare
Information Management
Transformation and Resources
Wirral Council
 
This information supplied to you is copyrighted and continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial publication, would require our specific permission, may involve licensing and the application of a charge.

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