Good afternoon, I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, concerning the following questions. 1) How many acres of land owned by TFL are completely undeveloped? 2) Since 9th May 2016, how many acres of land owned by TFL has been sold? 3) Since 9th May 2016, how many acres of land owned by TFL has been sold for the purpose of building affordable housing? 4) Since 9th May 2016, how many affordable homes on TFL land have received planning permission? 5) Since 9th May 2016, how many affordable homes have been built on land sold by TFL? 6) Since 9th May 2016, how many affordable homes have been built on land owned by TFL? Yours sincerely,

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Our ref: FOI-3121-1920 

 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 16 January 2020 asking for information about TfL’s land. 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations and our Information Access Policy. You asked: 

 

1)         How many acres of land owned by TFL are completely undeveloped? 

2)         Since 9th May 2016, how many acres of land owned by TFL has been sold? 

3)         Since 9th May 2016, how many acres of land owned by TFL has been sold for the purpose of building affordable housing? 

4)         Since 9th May 2016, how many affordable homes on TFL land have received planning permission? 

5)         Since 9th May 2016, how many affordable homes have been built on land sold by TFL? 

6)         Since 9th May 2016, how many affordable homes have been built on land owned by TFL? 

 

Given the extent of the information you are looking for, we are applying Regulation 12(4)(b) as we believe that the request is ‘manifestly unreasonable’ because providing the information you have requested would impose unreasonable costs on us and require an unreasonable diversion of resources.  

Collating some of the information you have requested, particularly the acres of land owned by TfL that are undeveloped, would be very time consuming. This is because there is no central record of these files and to find this detail would require identifying all land that has not yet been developed, liaising with internal and external surveyors, and then drawing up the extents of this land. This could also potentially entail drawing up thousands of plots which would take a considerable amount of time and resources. This would be exacerbated further by the time and resource required to collate the additional information you require. 

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. 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. 

Information on TfL’s property holdings is published in our Property Asset Register here:https://tfl.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=5129c766255941d3be16a6828faa8f18 

Information regarding TfL’s property development can be found here: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/business-and-commercial/property-development 

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

 

Yours sincerely, 

 

Melissa Nichols 

 

FOI Case Officer 

General Counsel 

Transport for London 

 

9iv jm

 

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