Request ID: FOI-2727-2324 Date published: 21 November 2023
You asked
This FOI request concerns the glass ceiling at Tottenham Court Road Station.
1. Does the glass ceiling installed by TWBN align with the Halcrow Group's specifications?
2. Are there indemnity clauses, warranties, or guarantees in the contracts with Halcrow Group or TWBN concerning the ceiling's design and performance?
3. Can you provide correspondence between TfL and both Halcrow Group and TWBN from 2013 onwards discussing the ceiling's performance or slip resistance concerns?
4. Has TfL sought legal opinions on possible contract breaches or professional liabilities by Halcrow, TWBN, or other parties given the ceiling issues? If not, why?
5. Is TfL's CEO, Mr. Wolfgang Schütt, briefed on the concerns and remedial actions tied to the glass ceiling?
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-2727-2324
Thank you for your request which we received on 31 October 2023, asking for information about the glass ceiling at Tottenham Court Road.
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.
The contract with the principal contractor, a joint venture between Taylor Woodrow and BAM Nuttall (TWBN), has been executed as a deed. As such it has a twelve-year statutory limitation period from completion. During this period, should a breach of the contract become evident, a claim may be made against both parties either jointly or severally.
TWBN provided a slip test report which progressed through eight revisions between 2015 and 2018, finally being accepted by both TWBN and TfL. The slip test results comply with the required slip specifications.
You asked for correspondence between TfL and Halcrow Group / TWBN from 2013. I can confirm that we’ve had a lot of correspondence with Halcrow Group and TWBN on this project. We’ve identified nearly 60,000 communications on this subject.
Unfortunately, to provide the correspondence 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 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
All of these potentially relevant emails would require a manual review to see if they are in scope of your request. Some of the emails captured by the search might be duplicates or not even relevant, but we would still have to check each and individual one. Clearly this would take an excessive amount of time and resources. On that basis, we have calculated that it would considerably exceed the cost limit to provide a response to your current request.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you. For example you may find it more beneficial to ask specific questions or request specific documents which are less likely to lead to such a significant volume of information requiring review in order to collate the information that is relevant to your request.
Finally, please note Andy Lord is the Commissioner of Transport for London (TfL). Please refer to this link for TfL Chief Officers page.
Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
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
