Please can you provide the following information, which I have not been able to source online: • Crossrail Equality Impact Assessment, initial screening – I am specifically interested in the Tottenham Court Road Station site; • TfL Equality and Inclusion Policy framework at the time of the EqIA pertaining to Tottenham Court Road Station; • Records of any consultations with LGBTQ+ groups, individuals or businesses in the vicinity of the Tottenham Court Road Station; • Records/correspondence related to any of the following venues in the vicinity of the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road Station: Astoria/LA2, G-A-Y, Rouge, First Out, and any other LGBTQ+ venues – e.g. correspondence with venues or with the GLA; • Details/records/correspondence specifying any compensation awarded to any LGBTQ+ or other night venues in the Tottenham Court Road Station site.

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TfL Ref: FOI-3722-1920

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 3^rd March 2020 asking for information about the Tottenham Court Road Station site.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

Specifically you asked:

“Please can you provide the following information, which I have not been able to source online:

• Crossrail Equality Impact Assessment, initial screening – I am specifically interested in the Tottenham Court Road Station site;
• TfL Equality and Inclusion Policy framework at the time of the EqIA pertaining to Tottenham Court Road Station;
• Records of any consultations with LGBTQ+ groups, individuals or businesses in the vicinity of the Tottenham Court Road Station;
• Records/correspondence related to any of the following venues in the vicinity of the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road Station: Astoria/LA2, G-A-Y, Rouge, First Out, and any other LGBTQ+ venues – e.g. correspondence with venues or with the GLA;
• Details/records/correspondence specifying any compensation awarded to any LGBTQ+ or other night venues in the Tottenham Court Road Station site.”

I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. However, it is not possible to provide it within the £450 costs limit for responding to cases as set out in section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12 of the Act, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if it would exceed the cost limit to determine if the information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract it from other information. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work.

Given the wording of your request, there is no particularly easy or efficient way for us to source all of the information you have requested. This is especially true of the broader questions at 3-5 of your request. In order to find all of the material within the scope of your request we would have to try and identify all “LGBTQ+ groups, individuals or businesses in the vicinity of the Tottenham court Road site” and whether we have had any consultation/correspondence with them. There is no easy way to do this, and simply trying to determine what we hold in this regard, before even trying to locate it, would, we believe, take us beyond the £450 / 18-hour limit.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within that limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. If you choose to do so, I would advise that you read the guidance provided by the Information Commissioner on how best to request information from a public body, that can be found on its website here:

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/official-information/

Note that the advice states that applicants should, “Be as specific as possible about the information you want rather than asking general questions.” Therefore, if you do choose to submit a revised request, I would ask that you not only consider whether there is a specific timeframe that you are interested in but also to name specific groups, businesses or individuals, and specific information, rather than use terms such as “any”. Note that the more information you request and the broader the scope of your request the less likely it is that we will be able to respond positively.

Note also that the Government has announced a series of measures to tackle the Coronavirus. It is essential for London, and in particular for all critical workers, that we continue to provide a safe transport network that enables them to make the journeys they need to.

In current circumstances, we are not able to answer FOI requests readily and we ask that you please do not make a request to us at present.

Answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. In any event, please note that our response time will be affected by the current situation.

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

Yours sincerely,

David Wells

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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