TfL Ref: FOI-2584-2021 Thank you again for your email which we received on 18 March 2021, asking for information about the Mini-Hollands People & Places research. Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we hold some of the information you require. The Mini-Hollands People & Places research is commissioned to University of Westminster Trading Ltd. by TfL’s City Planning directorate. This choice of supplier was solely based on the academic record and merit of the relevant department at this research institution for the topic at hand. And while Professor Aldred is our main contact as lead researcher and the Head of this department, it is not with her directly that these contracts are signed. The supplier was chosen because of their value and experience in the field. Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request 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. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described. We have estimated that it would considerably exceed the cost limit to provide a response to your current request as we would need to trawl through an excessive volume of records and emails to collate the information you require. Specifically, you asked for copies of emails and minutes of meetings between TfL and the University of Westminster or Professor Aldred regarding the Mini-Hollands People & Places research, going back to when the research was commissioned. We do not have any centralised record of correspondence on this subject and so to locate this information requires us to conduct a remote email search across our email records. We have conducted email searches of the email accounts most likely to have held correspondence on this subject since 2015 and this produced nearly 1,500 emails. This excessive volume of information would require comprehensive review. Each email caught by the search would need to be manually reviewed to determine whether it’s concerning the topic in question. Many of the hits would likely to be not relevant, duplicates, due to emails being repeated within email chains. Whilst the actual number of emails covered by your request might be a sub-set of the numbers the email search captured, it is the excessive work involved in having to locate and extract those that are relevant and meet your request, that would be very burdensome. Furthermore there are likely to be additional emails relevant to your request that may not have been caught by the keyword searches and so we would likely need to conduct further searches using additional keywords and finding relevant members of TfL staff who would have had discussions on this topic, to ensure that everything relevant has been located and collated. In order to collate the other information you have requested on top of this would of course increase the processing time required to complete your request. To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a shorter period of time. Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request. Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request. However, if you are considering submitting a revised request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI/EIR 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. 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