I have been told by my local councillor that RBKC submitted to TfL a traffic scheme for Pedestrian Lights at intersection of Royal Hospital Road/Lower Sloane Street. Regarding the scheme I would like copies of emails, minutes of meetings (along with any documents circulated), traffic models agreed, and decisions made with RBKC (inclusive of its traffic consultants working on its behalf) since 1st August 2019 regarding installation of: 1) zebra crossing on Lower Sloane Street 2) pedestrian lights at the intersection of Lower Sloane Street/Royal Hospital Road/Chelsea Bridge Road/Pimlico Road.

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Our Ref:         FOI-0310-2021

Thank you for your request received on 1 June 2020 asking for information about the traffic scheme at the junction of Lower Sloane Street with Royal Hospital Road.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.

Please find the requested information attached.

When requests for email correspondence are received the FOI Case Management team may use a search tool called Discovery Accelerator (DA). This allows us to conduct company wide email searches using keywords, dates and email addresses. Our search only covers up to 31 March 2020 as after this date the individuals we have carried out a search on had their email accounts moved to Office 365 and therefore are not retrievable using DA.

As we are unable to do a search for all of the requested emails this would involve the persons involved doing a manual search of their accounts to identify any relevant emails. It is an unavoidable consequence that processing this request would require critical employees to be diverted from their operational responsibilities and, in the current circumstances, we consider that our priority must remain on providing and maintaining an effective transport system to essential workers across the capital and that our limited resources are utilised as effectively as possible to ensure that happens. After having reviewed the attached correspondence, if you would still like to receive the correspondence from April 2020 please let me know and we will try to process this request.

In accordance with the EIR, we are not obliged to supply some of the financial information contained within the attached correspondence as well as the requested traffic modelling as it is subject to a statutory exception to the right of access to information under regulation 12(5)(e).

In this instance the regulation 12(5)(e) exception has been applied to information on our cost to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) to deliver this work as well as the quotes for this work. Disclosure would be likely to prejudice our commercial interests, as well as those of RBKC, and our ability to achieve best value when we carry out similar work in the future. The traffic model requested belongs to RBKC and contains information of commercial value.

The use of this exception is subject to an assessment of the public interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. We recognise the need for openness and transparency by public authorities, particularly where the expenditure of public money is concerned, but in this instance the public interest in ensuring that we and other authorities are able to obtain the best value for public money outweighs the general public interest in increasing transparency of our processes.

In accordance with our obligations under Data Protection legislation some personal data has been removed, as required by regulation 13 of the EIR. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the legislation, specifically the first principle of Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions which would make the processing ‘fair’.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.

Please note, the Government has announced a series of measures to tackle the coronavirus. It is essential for London, that we continue to provide a safe transport network for essential journeys.
 
In current circumstances, we are not able to answer requests readily and we ask that you please do not make a request to us at present.
 
Answering requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. In any event, please note that our response time will be affected by the current situation.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
Senior FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

[email protected]

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