FOI Request: Aire Street Car Park - Parkingeye

Via Email.

City Development

Administration

Level 6

The Leonardo Building

Leeds LS2 8HD

Contact: Jayne Conboy

Our reference: FOI 15896

16 March 2016

Dear Mr. Holdridge

FOI Request: Aire Street Car Park - ParkingEye

I write in response to your Freedom of Information request regarding the above, received in this office on 17th February 2016.

In dealing with your request, please note that we have considered it under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, as opposed to under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is because the information you have requested is information involving ‘activities’ and ‘administrative measures’ which are likely to affect elements of the environment under Reg 2(1)(c). I am advised that both the domestic and European courts give wide meaning to the Regulations and have indicated that they will adopt a broad construction of the definition of environmental information.

I have taken the points raised in turn below:

On 23 September 2015 Caroline Nutter lodged an FOI request with you to establish whether - in respect of the temporary short stay car park at the junction of Aire Street and Wellington Street - ParkingEye Ltd had been granted planning consent for their advertising and ANPR cameras.

You recorded this as request reference: 15038

You then rejected the request on 8 October on these grounds:

"Under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are not required to provide information in response to a request for information if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you have requested is available via the link below. https://publicaccess.leeds.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=MRZAIUJB17S00"

The link supplied does not seem to provide the information requested. Nor does the portal appear to evidence any subsequent planning application relating to the site. On the face of it, therefore, the Council appears to be in breach of the Freedom of Information Act, having deflected a request with false and misleading information.

To advise, the Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations allow members of the public access to recorded information held by public authorities.

In this particular case, as planning decisions are matters of public record, I do not consider that it was unreasonable for the council to provide a link to the relevant decision so as to enable this to be reviewed by the member of the public. It is certainly not false or misleading information, as this was the relevant recorded information held by the authority at the time.

Whilst I note that the officer’s report available via the above link does makes reference to the use of ANPR cameras, if the member of the public had a query in respect of the planning decision, or believed that there had been a planning breach, we would have been happy to advise further in this regard.

Your planning portal does, however, show that the Decision Notice dated 24 Jan 2014 stated:

"Further to condition 5, prior to the use of the car park a sign(s) shall be erected which shall confirm that the car park is for use solely as a short stay car park with a tariff structure that results in a charge of no less than £25.00 for over 5 hours parking. Details of the location and appearance of the sign(s) shall first be submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority."

Please now provide the following information within the FOI framework:

(1) Verify and confirm that the information requested by Caroline Nutter is NOT in fact available at the planning portal reference you supplied.

The information provided on our planning public access website was that which was held by the authority at the point of the request. The information to which you refer was not available on the Planning Portal as no application to discharge condition 6 of planning permission 13/04009/FU was submitted.

For your reference, however, planning permission 13/04009/FU expired on 31st January 2016. Permission for the car park to operate until 31st January 2019 has since been granted by planning permission 15/07448/FU, which replaces the earlier permission.

(2) Assuming that is the case, please confirm what action should now be taken by you under the Council's internal procedures and statutory obligations in order to review and correct this apparent failure of compliance.

As stated above, planning permission 13/04009/FU has been superseded by planning permission 15/07448/FU and, as such, the historic conditions are no longer relevant.

(3) Provide all available information relating to any application, consideration and approval/rejection of the signage by the Planning Authority as stipulated by your Decision Notice. This should include, though not be limited to, emails, letters, telephone & meeting notes, and official notices.

As stated previously, no application to discharge condition 6 of planning permission 13/04009/FU was made and, as such, no recorded information is held in respect of this query.

(4) If it is the case that no planning consent has in fact been granted, please confirm why and how that breach of your own planning decision and framework was allowed to happen. Again, correspondence, emails, notes and minutes of decisions would be relevant.

We do not hold recorded information in respect of the above. It is important to note, however, that it is responsibility of the applicant to ensure that they discharge all relevant planning conditions. Had a complaint been received at the time regarding this condition, the council would have investigated this matter.

(5) If it is the case that the Council has failed to enforce its own Decision, it must also be guilty of having failed in its duty to enforce the law in respect of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements)(England) Regulations. Such failures would clearly meet the definition of maladministration as applied by the Local Government Ombudsman. Please advise what action should now be taken by you under the Council's internal procedures and statutory obligations in order to review and correct this apparent failure of compliance and to prevent recurrence.

As stated above, where breaches of planning control come to light the council will investigate and determine whether or not it is expedient to take enforcement action. The car park is now operating with the benefit of a new temporary planning permission, however, and the conditions attached to that are now relevant. There is no purpose or requirement to seek approval of conditions on planning permissions which are no longer extant.

(6) Continuing the assumption that there has been no consent for signage and ANPR, a further public interest issue arises. The Council's negligence will have permitted ParkingEye Ltd. to pursue a large number of citizens (most of whom would likely be your council Tax payers and electorate) for parking 'penalties'. They would have (a) cited illegally erected signage as the contractual justification for their claim, (b) used pictures from illegally installed cameras as evidence submitted to court, and (c) used those pictures to make 'registered keeper' enquiries to DVLA to obtain personal data. Please advise what action under such circumstances should now be taken by you under the Council's internal procedures and statutory obligations in order to address this apparent failure of compliance, to prevent recurrence, and to provide redress to any citizens affected by this failure. I would imagine that there are wider contingent procedures, codes, and legislation concerning duties of care, data protection, and human rights as well as those relating specifically to competent administration of planning law.

Please see the answers above.

Under Regulation 11, you are entitled to make representations to us if it appears that we have failed to comply with a requirement of the Regulations in relation to your request. Representations must be made to us no later than 40 working days after the date you believe we failed to comply with such a requirement.

We will then consider your representations and supporting evidence and decide if we have complied, notifying you of our decision as soon as possible, and no later than 40 working days after the date of receipt of your representations.

Under Regulation 18, you are then entitled to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision as to whether, in any specified respect, your request has not been dealt with in accordance with parts 2 and 3 of the Regulations.

Should you wish to contact the Commissioner’s Office then you can write to the following address:

Office of the Information Commissioner,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire,

SK9 5AF.

You may also contact the Commissioner via his website at www.ico.gov.uk

I trust that this is self-explanatory. If you have any queries please contact me on 0113 2477897, or by return email.

Yours sincerely,

Jayne Conboy

Information Practitioner