Dear Transport for London, Can you please send us the following, in relation to the proposed Cycleway 4 (Southwark section between China Hall and Evelyn Street) and proposed changes to Lower Road / Rotherhithe Old Road / A2208 / Bush Road gyratory and Rotherhithe during 2017, 2018 and 2019: (1) A list of meetings you have held or attended with Southwark Council, Southwark council councillors, property developers or their representatives (2) Documents or emails setting out any comments, suggestions views you have set out about the proposals Public Interest This request is in the public interest because delivering Cycleway 4 at Surrey Quays is dependent on Southwark Council's Rotherhithe Movement Plan which does not comply with Southwark Council policy, Canada Water Area Action Plan or Mayor Of London's policies. The Rotherhithe Movement Plan will increase pollution in residential streets (that are already polluted), make bus time longer, remove zebra crossing, increase pedestrian journey times, ensure that motor traffic dominates Lower Road / Rotherhithe Old Road / A2208 gyratory and Bush Road and so on. Traffic flow will increase in Rotherhithe Old Road which is already congested and polluted. Southwark Cllrs Mark Williams and Ian Wingfield wrote to Will Norman (17/8/2017) "In particular we would like to progress designs for alternative routing for CS4". It appears the councillors were not happy about TfLs proposal at the time. We seek to know TfL's involvement in making the Rotherhithe Movement Plan and the current proposals that will harm our residents and environment. It looks as though plans have been influenced by lobbying. The Canada Water Area Action Plan states: “Policy 8: Vehicular traffic ... We will work with TfL and Lewisham to make the following improvements to the road network to accommodate growth at Canada Water •Introduce a right turn into Surrey Quays Road for north-bound traffic on Lower Road. •Reintroduce two-way traffic movement on Lower Road and enable a straight-across movement from Plough Way to Rotherhithe New Road. Our objective will be to reduce traffic flows on Rotherhithe Old Road, simplify In the network for all users, make the network more efficient, create a safer, more attractive environment for pedestrians and cyclists and make sure that the reliability and frequency of buses is not affected." “4.3.17 Using the model, we have prepared a comprehensive transport strategy for this area. Our proposals aim to simplify the gyratory system making it less complicated for all users. Our testing shows that reintroducing two-way traffic on Lower Road substantially reduces traffic flows on Rotherhithe Old Road which has the potential to significantly improve the environment for residents. While the proposed changes do not significantly increase the capacity of the network, revised signalling of key junctions enables traffic to move through the area more smoothly. It will also enable us to improve pedestrian crossings on Lower Road, reducing the barrier effect it currently creates between the shopping centre and Surrey Quays station, the Hawkstone Estate and Southwark Park. In revising the AAP, we will re-run our testing we have reviewed growth and trip assumptions associated with a redevelopment of Harmsworth Quays to make sure that our strategy for improving transport in the area remains robust.”

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TfL Ref: FOI-1675-1920

Thank you for your email of 28^th August 2019 asking for information about the Cycleway 4 project.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy.

Specifically you asked:

“Can you please send us the following, in relation to the proposed Cycleway 4 (Southwark section between China Hall and Evelyn Street) and proposed changes to Lower Road / Rotherhithe Old Road / A2208 / Bush Road gyratory and Rotherhithe during 2017, 2018 and 2019:

(1) A list of meetings you have held or attended with Southwark Council, Southwark council councillors, property developers or their representatives

(2) Documents or emails setting out any comments, suggestions views you have set out about the proposals.”

I can confirm that we hold the information you require. However, to answer your questions would exceed the costs limit for responding to FOI cases set out in section 12 of the FOI Act. Under section 12 of the Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, and then locating, retrieving or extracting it from other information, would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described – equivalent to 18 hours work.

There is no easy way for TfL to locate the information you have requested. In relation to your first question alone, we have identified 6-8 members of staff from the Cycleway 4 project team who have potentially had direct liaison with the Council and others over the three years in question. A list of the meetings they have had has not been previously compiled. Therefore, such information would need to be sourced from the original records such as the calendars of the individuals concerned. We believe that to collate this information in itself would exceed the 18-hour limit (even if it were just 6 members of staff, a review of their calendars would need to be conducted at a rate of 1 year every hour). However, in addition to this, we believe that there are other individuals in other teams who may have had discussions with the Council / developers, and the time taken to source that information would need to be factored in as well, along with the time spent addressing your second question. While it is difficult to say exactly how long all of this would take, we believe it would be well in excess of the threshold.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing or reframing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. If you do choose to submit a reframed request, I would ask that you be more explicit as to the exact information you are requesting – for example, at present, it is not entirely clear what information you think is held in relation to your second question. I would point you to the guidance provided by the Information Commissioner on how best to access information from a public body, and in particular the table of “dos and don’ts” found on their website here:

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/official-information/

As you can see, the Commissioner advises that applicants be as specific as possible, and that they should not send “catch all requests” nor “fish for information”. The Commissioner also suggests that it may be helpful to explain the purpose behind the request.

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

Yours sincerely,

David Wells

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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