Response 4019830

Response to request for information

Reference

4019830

Response date

1 July 2026

Request

I would like to request copies of any and all correspondence (written and emailed) between officers or members of RBC with any of the following organisations with mention of ‘contamination’, ‘radiation’ or ‘flooding’ - Barwood, Taylor Wimpey, Vistry, Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottingham City Council, Trueman Aviation or Spire Hospital. This is to help with reassurance as a Tollerton resident and because I am writing an article for publication highlighting the lack of proper surveys, soil analysis or use of comparative studies regarding dangers to health, livelihoods and children.

Response

In your request, you asked the Council:

I would like to request copies of any and all correspondence (written and emailed) between officers or members of RBC with any of the following organisations with mention of ‘contamination’, ‘radiation’ or ‘flooding’ - Barwood, Taylor Wimpey, Vistry, Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottingham City Council, Trueman Aviation or Spire Hospital.

Having reviewed your request, in accordance with Section 16 Freedom of Information Act and the Freedom of Information Code of Practice we are under a duty to provide advice and assistance to clarify unclear requests. Please clarify whether the information you are seeking is in respect of the whole Borough or a particular area of the borough. It may also assist if you are able to:

specify the issue or documents you are interested in;
the relevant time period;

Updated request

I am interested in the period after the Vistry application to build homes on Tollerton Airport land - so I imagine that is after May 2021. My interest is any documents or correspondence other than reports between officers, councillors and businesses directly relating to the purchase and development of land associated with the Tollerton and Gamston area concerning housing on Tollerton Airfield and safety concerns. It will relate to Tollerton and Gamston and could be between any council representative and any of the key players in the ill-conceived plans to build hundreds of houses on a site that is likely to be a health risk.

In recent years public confidence in government and agencies to protect citizens health and safety has been rightly dented - as we saw with the legal cases against water boards following serious contamination and illness and deaths.

My justified concern as a local resident and parent is that inadequate consideration has been given to the serious potential dangers of WW2 pollution and contamination of land now earmarked for family houses - and that a similarly casual approach to the dangers of road traffic and flooding implications of large scale development needs investigation.

Response

In your request, you asked the Council:

You clarified your request on 4 June stating:

In recent years public confidence in government and agencies to protect citizens health and safety has been rightly dented - as we saw with the legal cases against water boards follwoing serious contamination and illness and deaths.

My justified concern as a local resident and parent is that inadequate consideration has been given to the serious potential dangers of WW2 pollution and contamination of land now earmarked for family houses - and that a similarly casual approach to the dangers of road traffic and flooding implications of large scale development needs investigation.

I hope this helps.

I intend to write an article and research report detailing the lack of proper consultation and the dismissal of public concerns surrounding health and safety issues. As a TV drama writer I am also intending to develop a script based on the struggles of local campaigners to highlight the contamination concerns - and the council's unwillingness to address these issues adequately.

Refusal Notice under EIR Regulation 14(3)

The disclosure requested relates to environmental information and has been considered under the Environment Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). Since we acknowledged your request officers at the Council have been working to establish what information we hold, how best to provide this to you, and who is best suited in the Council to manage this response for you on behalf of each relevant team. Initial application of the search criteria has generated such a large quantity of potentially relevant documents that it would take an unreasonable amount of Council resources to compile the disclosure. The Council has considered the exception to the duty to disclose at EIR Regulation 12(4)(b), relevant to the request being manifestly unreasonable. This can relate to a number of aspects of unreasonableness including the burden placed on the public authority in complying with a request. The Council has considered the public interest in maintaining the exception (see below) and has determined that the burden of complying with the request does make this request manifestly unreasonable.

Public Interest Test

The Council considered the ICO guidance on this exception and the Court of Appeal decision in Craven v ICO & DECC (2012) which can be viewed here Court of Appeal in Dransfield v Information Commissioner and another & Craven v Information Commissioner and another [2015] EWCA Civ 454 (CA). This established that a useful starting point in considering whether the burden of disclosure is unreasonable, is to apply the test in section 12 FOIA which specifies that the appropriate cost/time limit is 18 hours of officer time. This gives an indication of the degree of burden that could be considered excessive. The Council calculates that simply identifying the pool of potential documents across all relevant teams has used 9 hours of officer time and produced in excess of 450 documents which would then need to be reviewed, processed and redacted of any sensitive or personal information. To review and sift the potential documents would place an additional burden across a number of teams which is a disproportionate use of officer resources given the size of the teams and would take in excess of 18 hours in totality. The factors relevant to this decision are:

In favour of disclosure

There is a presumption in favour of disclosure of information to the public
There is a public interest in disclosure of environmental information in relation to the investigations into contaminated land

In favour of maintaining the exception

The request can be refined to make disclosure achievable without placing the same excessive burden on the Authority’s resources
The disclosure of all documents relating to the search terms does not significantly add to public knowledge of the issue as much of the relevant data on the issue is in the public realm
The requesters’ stated purpose will not be assisted significantly by disclosure of the correspondence

The Council has determined that in balancing these factors against each other, the public interest in protecting public resources outweighs the benefit of disclosing a wide scope of correspondence between the parties.

Advice and Assistance

We have a duty under Regulation 9(1) EIRs to provide advice and assistance in order to help a request be submitted. We consider that the duty in Regulation 9(1) applies in this case.

You have considered ways for you to reduce the burden of complying with a fresh request under EIR.

Time – your clarification states I am interested in the period after the Vistry application to build homes on Tollerton Airport land - so I imagine that is after May 2021. It appears that the Vistry application was made on 11th March 2024 and we have gathered information based on that date as requested. There may be little reduction in the burden by reducing the time period.

Search Criteria – if the type of contamination were qualified by the type you are truly interested in then this is likely to significantly reduce the burden of the disclosure. You may wish to consider resubmitting your request, narrowing the search criteria by specifying ‘radiation’ or ‘chemical contamination’ for example, or by omitting flooding and general contamination if it is radiation that you are chiefly interested in.

Environmental Information Regulations