Stockport Council News

In February 2014 Stockport Council paid £1,534.33 to Vale View School. I am unsure what this seperate item is for.

“Vexatious” Requests (96)

3. Public authorities have expressed concern that section 14(1) on vexatious requests is hard to use. Index on Censorshipsupports the principle that the section should only be used as a last resort against those filing multiple FOI requests where no public interest can be demonstrated.”

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmjust/96/96vw70.htm

Email received –

02 November 2007 15:17

Our Reference 780

Dear Mrs Oliver,

Environmental Information Regulations – Venting

This is a repeated request that has already been answered in my response dated 6th November under the same title.

Please note at this stage in the process the design is not detailed enough to answer the question. The Council can confirm however that the recommendations of the GMGU report will be embodied in the ultimate specifications and designs.

Yours sincerely,

XXXX

Freedom of Information & Data Protection Processing Officer

From: sheilaoliver
Sent: 14 October 2007 20:09
To: Cllr Mark Weldon; Andrew Webb
Cc: Cllr Brian Bagnall(EXT); Cllr Christine/Stuart Corris(EXT); Cllr Dave Goddard; Cllr John Smith; Cllr Mark Weldon; Cllr Maureen Walsh; Cllr Peter Scott(EXT); John Schultz;
Subject: Re: Financial Liability

Dear Councillor Weldon

Forgot to say. In the cost of the school account needs to be taken of the cost of the repair and maintenance of the gas venting system over the life of the school (30 years?). This cost will be incurred by council taxpayers and needs to be included when arriving at the total cost of this extremely expensive school – already way above Government guidelines.

Secondly, gas venting can’t take place in car parks, public open space or in areas where children play. Please explain to me, therefore, where on this site gas venting can take place, because there is nothing but car parking, public open space or areas where children play or study or where babies are.

Please answer the above.

Kind regards

Sheila

http://www.sheilaoliver.org/financial-irregularities.html

24 August 2007 17:03

Dear Mrs Oliver,

Thank you for your e-mail of 15th August.

I apologise for the delay in responding but I have been making a number of enquiries to enable me to become better informed about the overall circumstances before getting back to you.

I note your frustration concerning the ‘public questions’ and FOI enquiries difficulties you have had but I understand that these matters have already been reviewed by a very senior officer of the Council, and I do not think it would be appropriate for me as Chief Internal Auditor to conduct a further review of those matters, nor do I think that it is part of Internal Audit’s remit to do so.

I am, however, concerned about the suggestion in your e-mail that there is some form of corruption going on in that the Fir Tree site has already been sold to a builder. I can find no truth in this ‘allegation’ from my enquiries so far – in fact it appears that we are not yet anywhere near close to a position where this land would actually be available for development.

In the circumstances I cannot see that a meeting between us would help to take matters further, unless of course, you have more detailed information/evidence concerning the potential corruption which you would be prepared to share with me.

Unfortunately I am now going to be away on annual leave until mid-September, but I will be happy to reconsider the position then in the light of any further information which you might have.

Bob Wainwright

Chief Internal Auditor.

From: sheilaoliver
Sent: 15 August 2007 16:26
To: Bob Wainwright
Cc: f-blatcher@audit-commission.gov.uk; John Schultz
Subject: Harcourt Street

Dear Mr Wainwright

I am very, very concerned. Please may I have a meeting with you in the Internal Audit Office to discuss what has gone on regarding the proposed school on Harcourt Street.

Everything has been done to shut me up – I was humiliated and banned from asking Council meeting questions for 3 months. I was threatened with some sort of exposure in the local press. I was illegally denied the opportunity to put Freedom of Information questions, as was everyone else in the town. I was told it would take 84 hours for a council officer to read and “redact” the files before I could see them, so request refused. When I did get to see the documents it took me just 2 hours to read them. More lies. When the 60 day time limit imposed on me by the Council expired, lo and behold we were all still banned from asking FOIA questions. I have been denied access to what Donna Sager admitted to me was a public document – the minutes of the school organisation committee – and when I finally saw it it contained vital information for me. Even though I have not made a FOIA request regarding the safety of the Council’s new traffic proposals for a new school and how four year olds are supposed to navigate their way along a dangerous lane and a large school entrance, and I am being told they are treating this as a FOIA request (which will take between 20 working days and six months) and the planning decision meeting is next week. I have not made a written request and these are planning matters and should be in the public domain anyway. I only overturned by illegal FOIA ban by humiliating the Council at Westminster and my council question ban (which I believe was against my human rights to question elected representatives) by poking fun at the Council in the press.

I have been going house to house in the area concerned with the new school and the closure of the old one and time and time again local people tell me they suspect corruption – that the Fir Tree land has already been sold to a builder.

The proposal to build the school on the Harcourt Street site makes no sense at all – financial or otherwise. And why put two children’s centres in close proximity when a deprived area has the perfect site for a new children’s centre and certainly the need for one.

Something very, very odd is going on and senior council officers have been kept informed of my concerns all along and have done nothing to help and, in my opinion, have done everything to obstuct the truth coming out.

I exclude Mr. Steve Lamb, Head of Development and Control, who has been helpful and, in my opinion, honest in his dealings with the public over this issue.

Please listen to me.

Kind regards

Sheila

There is no turning area because the Council don’t own the land and had they compulsory purchased it there would have been a public inquiry which they would have lost. So they knew they were creating a dangerous traffic situation with no solution. Dodgy LibDems – don’t trust them with your children’s safety.

“The drop off area will have insufficient capacity to meet all demand and should be prioritised for use by those dropping off the youngest children.”

“The construction of the turning area will require removal of some trees which should be replaced behind the turning area.”
———————————————–
Jim,

I agree, I didn’t realise until I took over the file recently just how big the school is and how limited the drop off facilities. But better to raise it now than after the school opens and the kids are getting all muddy getting out on the verge. Then the cost of any remedial works would be likely to fall to the Area Committee who probably wouldn’t thank me for it.

Nick
———————————————
From: Jim Seymour
Sent: 25 July 2007 12:40
To: Nick Whelan
Subject: RE: highways addendum

Sheila raised why this issue has been raised now and not with your other highways views within the committee report. She was having a dig that it was short notice.

jim
——————————————-
From: Nick Whelan
Sent: 25 July 2007 12:28
To: Jim Seymour
Subject: RE: highways addendum

Jim,

What point?

Nick
——————————————
From: Jim Seymour
Sent: 25 July 2007 11:47
To: ‘sheilaoliver@ntlworld.com’
Cc: Steve Lamb; Nick Whelan
Subject: highways addendum

Sheila

Here it is attached again. Timing is out of my control I’m afraid but yes I take your point. Speak to Nick Whelan (highway engineer) on this point if you need more info.

Regards

Jim

Within one month of the school opening, the police complained to Stockport Council about the dangerous traffic situation around the school. The dodgy LibDem executive councillors still claim I am “vexatious” to mention the traffic situation.

http://www.sheilaoliver.org/traffic.html

Email received – 15 August 2007 16:05

Dear Mrs Oliver,

Traffic Reports – Correspondence addressed to Nick Whelan

I am writing in response to your e-mail addressed to Nick Whelan below. All the traffic reports are on the planning files and are public documents which you have viewed a number of occasions..

The main concerns we have with the school relate to the main drop off and collection times for the Primary School. The activities listed are not anticipated to make any significant impact on the traffic generated by the site at these times. Outside the main drop off and pick up times the on site parking should be adequate to cater for the demands made. Some of the functions listed, especially the before and after school clubs, will help spread the arrivals and departures and should reduce the peak time traffic impact.

Yours sincerely

XXXX

Freedom of Information & Data Protection Processing Officer

From: sheilaoliver [mailto:sheilaoliver@ntlworld.com]
Sent: 01 August 2007 21:48
To: Nick Whelan
Cc: Pat Penkethman; Steve Lamb
Subject: Traffic

Dear Mr Whelan

I note from the School Organisation Committee minutes 16/01/06 and 05/02/05 that the children’s centre would be used for:-

Midwifery drop-in session

Baby clinics

Health visitor drop-in sessions

Speech and language support for children

pre-school provision

breakfast clubs

before and after school provision

homework clubs

for parents and other carers groups to take part in extra curricular activities

adult education classes and other more locally defined initiatives.

I have not seen any allowance made in the traffic reports for these activities.

Given your frankly pathetic performance at Monday’s Tame Valley Area Committee – when asked to carry out work to the required standard you rolled your eyes in disgust – I am concerned that you don’t have the capability to carry out your job properly and also that you lack the desire to provide a truthful report. If you hadn’t sufficient staff to do the work, as you claimed to me, then you should have postponed the meeting until you did rather than produce such substandard work.

I expect an answer within 10 working days as to why the above mentioned traffic problems have not been considered.

Sheila

From: sheilaoliver
Sent: 02 August 2007 06:33
To: barry.khan@stockport.gov.uk; chief.executive@stockport.gov.uk
Cc: Fiona Blatcher
Subject: Irregularities at Stockport Council

Dear Mr Khan

Please provide a reply to this email within 10 working days, as per the Council’s own rules. I have not once had a reply from you and other council taxpayers are having the same problem with you. I object to paying your salary if you don’t every respond!

I shall copy this email to the District Auditor to make her aware of the looming problems.

1) Please let me know why the public consultation regarding the Harcourt Street school application did not present the public with any traffic reports, although these had been in the Council’s possession for quite a while. Documents seen last October under the FOIA stress that traffic was the major concern. Now, at planning decision time council taxpayers are having to spend tens of thousands of pounds more on extra traffic measures which take even more of their public open space away totally without consultation. This should never have been allowed to happen.

2) Why has the Council failed to advertise the loss of open space as it is required to do under the Local Government Act 1972?

3) Why has Councillor Carter, Executive member for Finance and who is normally uniquely amongst the Executive members helpful and responsive to members of the public, failed to reply to my question regarding the burgeoning costs of this school – it has almost doubled in six months to £8.5 million and not all costs have yet been included as the consultants admit.

4) Why did planning officer Jim Seymour repeatedly tell the decision making Tame Valley Area Committee last Monday that it had been advertised as a departure from the UDP when he knew this to be a lie?

5) I am terribly worried regarding Councillor Weldon, Executive member for Children and Young People. When I asked him last Monday evening about the spiralling costs of this scheme, he merely smirked and said the Council was “awash with money for Education”. It is frightening that someone in his position should take that attitude to millions of pounds of taxpayers/council taxpayers’ money.

6) The agreement to take such vast amounts of public open space without proper consultation in an area sadly lacking in this facility and in a less affluent area where it is sorely needed is yet another damning indictment of this Council. I note the District Auditor has previously express concern regarding public open space.

7) Of the capital receipt from the sale of the vastly more suitable Fir Tree site of £1.2 million over half has now been eaten up by the demands of Sport England. This whole matter no longer makes financial sense and I am extremely worried about all this.

I look forward to hearing from you and suggest the decision-making planning meeting of 23rd August is postponed until these issues regarding huge amounts of public money and vital public open space have been explored in an honest manner.

Yours sincerely

Sheila Oliver

As an explanation of how the still gassing former toxic waste dump at Harcourt Street was chosen for a 550 pupil primary school and nursery, the explanation below is clear as mud.

Email received

31 July 2007 1128
Dear Mrs Oliver
Freedom of Information Documents – Your Phone Call of 31st July – Repeated Request

In relation to your request for the School Organisation Committee minutes for July 2005. This information is not held by the Council as there was no School Organisation Committee meeting in July 2005. You have already had access to the full papers that went to that Committee in December 2005. As you are aware from the papers you have read when you visited the Council on 16th July 2007 the previous meeting of the School Organisation Committee was held on the 9th February 2005, the agenda, reports presented and minutes of which are available on the Council website at:
http://interactive.stockport.gov.uk/edrms/committeeminutes/committeesearch.aspx

In relation to your request to see the consultation documents, again you have already seen this documentation as it was in the bundle that you were given access too when you visited the Council. The consultation was about the closure of schools in the Reddish area and whether a new School should be built and what Facilities should be provided on a single site. The consultation questionnaire, results summery and details of the consultations carried out with teachers, governors, parents, carers and other members of the local community were all contained in the information you have already seen when you visited the Council on the 16th July 2007 in the form of the School Organisation Committee papers from December 2005.

The Council is under no duty to provide you with access to information you have already seen under section 14(2) of the Freedom of Information Act as this information has not changed. If you would like to view the School Organisation papers from December 2005 again then please let me know.

Yours sincerely

XXXX

Freedom of Information & Data Protection Processing Officer

——————————————————

From: sheilaoliver
Sent: 30 July 2007 20:19
To: Donna Sager
Subject: FOIA documents

Dear Ms Sager

As discussed this evening, please have the said documents available for me to read at Hygarth House this week. How the above comment can be construed as threatening, I really don’t know.

I note Councillor Scott expressed concern at tonight’s meeting regarding the same issue of how the Harcourt Street site was chosen. Not a very transparent process then.

I repeat these documents have not been made available to me at all despite numerous requests.

Sheila Oliver