TfL Ref: 1275-2021

Thank you for your request received by us on 13 October 2020 asking for correspondence relating to Hammersmith Bridge between Anvar Alizadeh of Hammersmith & Fulham Council and Transport for London (TfL) from February 2019 to the present.

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

However, we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the FOI Act. After reviewing a sample of our correspondence, we consider that providing the requested information would place an unreasonable burden on us. Our principal duty is to provide an effective transport service for London and we consider that answering this request would represent a disproportionate effort. It would be a significant distraction from our work managing the TfL network, requiring re-allocation of already limited resources and placing an unacceptable burden on a small number of specialist personnel. We do wish to clarify that whilst we consider that your request falls under section 14(1) of the FOI Act, this does not reflect a conclusion that it has been your intention to deliberately place an undue burden on our resources.

The ICO guidance provides the following examples of a request which may fall under section 14(1) if it:
• Imposes a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a substantial volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant details;
• Encompasses information which is only of limited value because of the wide scope of the request;
• Creates a burden by requiring the authority to spend a considerable amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions.

Our view is that all three of these examples apply in this instance.

We can advise that having undertaken an email search containing either the word ‘Hammersmith’ or ‘Bridge’ in the subject field over the specified timeframe, this generated over 1,200 hits. It was apparent that this search incorporated emails that were not specifically relevant to your request as the sender was neither the individual specified in your request or TfL. Therefore some work was undertaken to remove any emails sent from non-TfL staff or Anzar Alizadeh and this reduced the volume of relevant results to a total amount of 722 emails.

By reviewing the information captured by your request, it became apparent that a significant proportion of these communications would require considerable scrutiny and consideration of one or more exemptions under the FOI Act. These include sections 24, 38, 40, 42 and 43. Given the considerable volume of emails that would need to be individually scrutinised for the purposes of your request, this would place a significant burden on our resources. Large parts of the information across the emails and attachments would require detailed consideration by our security teams, engineering teams and the FOI team in order to ascertain whether an exemption should be applied.

We consider that the wide ranging nature of your request and the considerable amount of time it would take us to comply accordingly is not something that would be proportionate given the inevitable effect that diversion of so much specialist and critical resources would have on our functions . We consider the burden of retrieving, reviewing and redacting the information covered by your request would be disproportionate to the benefit of providing it. Therefore, we are refusing it under s14 of the FOI Act.

We are, of course, very mindful of the high level of public interest in the status of the bridge and the effect its current closure has on the community. There is a significant amount of information that has been placed into the public domain, including the reasons for its closure, and we do not consider the conversation would be moved on sufficiently to justify the amount of resource that would be required to process this request, to the detriment of our wider business functions. You may find more detail on the latest updates regarding the bridge at the following link: https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/hammersmith-bridge-all-you-need-know-and-latest-updates

The type of information that is featured within the emails and the sorts of concerns we have, were explained in a detailed response to IRV-017-2021 and I would refer you to that reply for a more in-depth explanation of the exemptions that we would need to consider in great depth. If there is a specific question you have regarding the bridge, it may be more beneficial to ask this as a direct request rather than fish for information within a very broad correspondence request, as these can often lead to concerns about the processing time and the resource required.

If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London