Request ID: FOI-3126-2324 Date published: 29 December 2023
You asked
Please provide the following in relation to Levelling Up Fund round 2:
• A summary of the contents of TfL's bid for funds to upgrade Leyton station
• Copies of all application documents, reports, forms or other information submitted in relation to the levelling up bids, this could include applications submitted through an online portal, written documents, images or presentations.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-3125-2324 / FOI-3126-2324
Thank you for your requests received on 1 December 2023 asking for information about the planned Leyton Station upgrade.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.
The submission to the Department of Levelling up (and latterly the DfT) was a joint bid for Leyton and Colindale stations. Therefore any of the documentation you have requested will contain information on each of the stations, any attempt to extract information that relates solely to either station would take a considerable amount of time and resource. In addition, some of the information contained within these documents is commercially sensitive and would need to be reviewed in order to determine what could be disclosed.
Given the extent of the information you are looking for across both of your requests we are applying Regulation 12(4)(b) as we believe that the requests are ‘manifestly unreasonable’ because providing the information you have requested would impose unreasonable costs on us and require an unreasonable diversion of resources.
We expect to publish a redacted copy of the final bid early in the new year. Some information is already available on the GLA website:
To help bring the time taken to respond to your request, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope. It may be possible to provide you with an overview of the scope of the upgrade as well as some visuals of what the station is expected to look like, as well as an overview of some of the options we considered. Alternatively, rather than a request for documentation, if you have specific questions that we can answer these may be easier to process and provide you with the 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 the requested information would promote accountability and transparency in public services and may help address your particular concerns. 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. As stated above, if you have specific questions we will be happy to consider those.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Gemma Jacob Senior FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
