Section S278 Agreements relating to residential developments during each of the past 5 financial years. 1. Please could you confirm the average time taken from technical submission to the issue of a technical approval? 2. Please could you confirm what is the average time from technical approval to the completion of a Section 278 legal agreement? Section 38 Road Adoptions relating to residential developments during each of the past 5 financial years. 1. Please could you confirm what is the average time taken: a. from technical submission to technical approval to; b. completion of a Section 38 legal agreement to; c. commencement of the maintenance period to; d. the date of formal adoption to; e. notification that any bond can be cancelled?

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Our ref: FOI-1052-1819/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 16 July 2018 asking for information about Section S278 Agreements

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require.

You have requested the following information from Transport for London:

Section S278 Agreements relating to residential developments during each of the past 5 financial years.

1. Please could you confirm the average time taken from technical submission to the issue of a technical approval?

2. Please could you confirm what is the average time from technical approval to the completion of a Section 278 legal agreement?

Section 38 Road Adoptions relating to residential developments during each of the past 5 financial years.

1. Please could you confirm what is the average time taken:

a. from technical submission to technical approval to;

b. completion of a Section 38 legal agreement to;

c. commencement of the maintenance period to;

d. the date of formal adoption to;

e. notification that any bond can be cancelled?

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the information you requested.

For clarity, we interpret the last 5 financial years as:

Dates:	Referred to as:
1st April 2018 – present	2018/19	Current financial year
1st April 2017 – 31st March 2018	2017/18
1st April 2016 – 31st March 2017	2016/17
1st April 2015 – 31st March 2016	2015/16
1st April 2014 – 31st March 2015	2014/15

Section 278 agreements

The system on which we collate our Section 278 data does not distinguish between the type of development (e.g. residential, commercial, retail) and many are mixed-use developments. We would request further clarification on whether you are interested in residential-only developments, or all developments where there is a residential element?

Additionally, we did not start to record the date of Technical Authority Approval until 2015/16 so cannot provide information for 2014/15. We do not record the date of technical submission, so cannot provide this information without significant time being spent analysing each scheme individually. Please note that under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with requests if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

We do not require technical approval to be granted ahead of the Section 278 legal agreement being completed, so the average figures requested may not be particularly helpful. Please see indication below for all Section 278 schemes (i.e. not just residential schemes) of the average number of days between technical approval and completion of s278 agreement.

Financial year	Average (mean) number of days between technical approval and completion of s278 agreement	Comments
2018/19	-	No appropriate schemes in dataset (24 schemes with neither technical approval or completed s278)
2017/18	59   (range: 165 days before – 23 days after s278)	11 schemes within dataset 7 schemes with technical approval and no completed s278 8 schemes with completed s278 but no technical approval 38 schemes with neither technical approval or completed s278
2016/17	52   (range: 528 days before – 221 days after s278)	30 schemes within dataset 4 schemes with technical approval and no completed s278 16 schemes with completed s278 but no technical approval 36 schemes with neither technical approval or completed s278
2015/16	42   (range: 393 days before – 686 days after s278)	28 schemes within dataset 2 schemes with technical approval and no completed s278 23 schemes with completed s278 but no technical approval 25 schemes with neither technical approval or completed s278
2014/15	-	No data available – information not collated

To be able to provide this information for residential schemes only would require time being spent categorising each scheme of which there are 316 initiated in the last 5 financial years. We would also require clarification, as mentioned above, about whether this request relates to residential-only schemes, or all schemes with a residential element.

Section 38 agreements

We have not entered into any stand-alone s38 agreements in the past 5 financial years. We have entered some s38 agreements as part of wider s278 agreements, but do not keep a separate record for these cases. It would take a significant amount of time to identify schemes involving a s38 agreement from the 316 schemes on file in the past 5 financial years.

As with s278 agreements, we do not indicate in our records what the type of development is so cannot easily separate residential schemes from other s278 schemes. As above also, we require clarification on whether you are interested in residential-only schemes or all schemes with a residential element.

As such, unfortunately, we cannot fulfil your request for the average time taken from technical submission to technical approval to; completion of a Section 38 legal agreement to; commencement of the maintenance period to; the date of formal adoption to; notification that any bond can be cancelled?

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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