Newbury Park Station Car Park
Request ID: FOI-2872-1819
Date published: 31 May 2019
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act can you please provide me with the following regarding Newbury Park Station car park.
1. Is it owned by TFL. If not, by who?
2. Are the non domestic rates paid by TFL or another organisation? Please provide the name of the rate payer if not TFL.
3. Is the car park legally covered by railway Byelaw?
4. Please provide a copy of the contract between TFL and NCP.
We answered
TfL Ref: 2872-1819
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 25 January 2019 asking for information about Newbury Park Station car park.
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. You asked: Under the Freedom of Information Act can you please provide me with the following regarding Newbury Park Station car park.
1. Is it owned by TFL. If not, by who?
TfL owns the land with NCP managing the operation of the car park on behalf of TfL under Contract.
2. Are the non domestic rates paid by TFL or another organisation? Please provide the name of the rate payer if not TFL.
This car park sits in the LUL NCP contract and therefore falls within the London Underground Ltd Rates assessment.
3. Is the car park legally covered by railway Byelaw?
Rail bylaws apply, however enforcement is carried out under Protection of Freedoms Act. This is not inconsistent with a number of other TOCs and a decision must have been made historically to do so for London Underground. At this time, the belief was that, with Rail Bylaws as ‘primary’ legislation, the government may enact that these would apply and that POFA would no longer be applicable in Rail car parks; with any enforcement activity under Bylaw from that time. There has been no legislation on this, POPLA are still dealing with these cases and any PCN issued under POFA is valid. The Terms and conditions are displayed at the car parks.
4. Please provide a copy of the contract between TFL and NCP.
Please find a redacted copy of the Contract attached.
Please note that specific pricing and cost information has been redacted as it is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section 43(2). In this instance the section 43(2) exemption has been applied as disclosure would, or would be likely to prejudice our commercial interests, as well as those of NCP Ltd.
In this instance the exemption has been applied to the NCP contract as disclosure of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of TfL and/or NCP. Disclosing details regarding pricing structures and monetary rates would prejudice TfL’s position in ensuring it has an unconstrained bargaining leverage in any future negotiations TfL may undertake in regard to this area.
Likewise NCP would suffer prejudice to its commercial interests if the financial specifications contained within the contract were disclosed both in the context of their approach to tender bids with other third party organisations and in the context of them competing with other bidders in any future re-procurement TfL might do for this particular service.
The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. TfL recognises the need for openness and transparency by public authorities, particularly where the expenditure of public money is concerned, but in this instance the public interest in ensuring that TfL is able to obtain the best value for public money with regards to the service provided to maintain the scheme, outweighs the general public interest in increasing transparency of TfL’s processes.
Additionally, in accordance with TfL’s obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) any personal data has been removed, as required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first principle of the DPA which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act which would make the processing ‘fair’.
This exemption to the right of access to information is an absolute exemption and not subject to an assessment of whether the public interest favours use of the exemption.
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
Sara Thomas
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
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