Pretoria Avenue Ventilation Shaft & Essex Close Development
Request ID: FOI-2078-2223 Date published: 20 December 2022
You asked
Hi there,
Please could you provide me with the follow information:
Any environmental noise & impact assessments made for this ventilation shaft. This could be in relation to the upgrades that were made in 2015.
Any operational / monitoring measurements made in the last 3 years that report on the normal expecting functioning of the ventilation shaft and its fan machinery.
Any correspondence & reports with developer Sixty Bricks and agents acting on their behalf (e.g Engie/ Equans or MLM Consulting )regarding the planning & construction of the Essex Road development. Any information that was passed onto them regarding the levels and impact would be helpful and the tunnels and structures located near to the Essex Close development recently completed.
Its in relation to correspondence to this development
https://builtenvironment.walthamforest.gov.uk/planning/index.html?fa=getApplication&id=48484
Notably the correspondance in relation to discharge of condition 29 which they should have worked with TFL on.
https://builtenvironment.walthamforest.gov.uk/planning/index.html?fa=getApplication&id=45504
I believe there was a letter of correspondence with Fuse Architects
TFL letter dated 06/11/2019
Thanks,
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-2078-2223
Thank you for your clarified request which we received on 24 November 2022, asking for information about Pretoria Avenue ventilation shaft and Essex Close Development.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) and our information access policy.
Given the extent of the information you are looking for, we are applying Regulation 12(4)(b) as we believe that your request is ‘manifestly unreasonable’ because providing effectively everything we hold about the ventilation shaft and the development next to it, would impose unreasonable costs on us and require an unreasonable diversion of resources. The project is 3 years old. It would take an excessive amount of staff time and resources to identify and locate all the different emails and reports we hold on this. Furthermore, documents about the shaft going back to 2015 may be held in our archived records. Locating and collating information from archived material would of course increase the processing time required to complete your request.
However, I can confirm the ventilation shaft would be cleaned at fixed frequencies to ensure it is operating optimally thus keeping the levels as low as practicable.
The use of this exception is subject to a public interest test, which requires us to consider whether the public interest in applying the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosure. We recognise that the release of information would promote accountability and transparency in public services and also help address any concerns you may have. However, the time it would take to provide the information you have requested would divert a disproportionate amount of our resources from its core functions and on balance we consider that the public interest currently favours the use of the exception.
We will consider your request again, if you are able to narrow its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. If you could ask specific questions we will be happy to consider those. We can also provide the key information that permitted the letter that was written in relation the condition 29 of the planning permission, as opposed to all correspondence we hold.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Eva Hextall FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
