Our reference 14-05-62

Dear Heather,
Further to your request for information, and for review of how the
council has handled your request, I have now completed that review. I
note, and apologise, that you have not received the council's usual
timely response in connection with this request. I accept that on this
occasion the council has not complied with the timescale for reply
required under Freedom of Information legislation while considering its
response, neither have you been kept informed of the time within which
a reply can be expected.

I have given careful consideration to your request for release of the
valuation report the council holds confirming that the sale of land at
Marine Walk achieved in excess of the market value of that land at the
time it was sold.

As you are aware, there have been numerous requests received in
relation to this site, and the council has taken the view that a number
of requests must be refused, as it is plain that a concerted campaign
is underway in opposition to development of this piece of land. The
task of responding to these is diverting resources away from the core
work of the council, and so preventing other services being provided to
the wider public.

I have considered where the public interest lies in respect of making
the report public in response to your request. I do note that, as you
indicate within the body of the request, the conclusion of the report
is already in the public domain. While it is apparent that some members
of the public, including yourself, consider they would benefit from
seeing the report in full, and I take it you would prefer to see proof
of the valuation, it is apparent that individuals remain intent on
campaigning against this development. In this context, where
information has previously been provided by the council in all good
faith this has routinely been misinterpreted and misrepresented by
individuals, in ways that are in fact misleading to the public and
which generate a further administrative burden to the council in
addressing and correcting these misconceptions. While I appreciate that
you may not be among those individuals who have misused information in
this way, it must be remembered that release of information under FOI
has the effect of making it available to everyone.

Against this background, and while the administrative task of providing
the report would not, itself, require significant resource, it does not
appear that the benefit of disclosure of the detailed report outweighs
the benefits of the council be able to direct its limited resources to
providing the many more directly beneficial services that the wider
public require.

I can again confirm that a valuation report is held, and that this
confirms that the council did achieve in excess of market value for
sale of the land, but regret that disclosure is refused, in view of
this continuing campaign that is placing excessive and undue demands on
council resources.

Specifically, the request is refused under Regulation 12 (4) (b) of the
Environmental Information Regulations, and/or to the extent it may
concern information that is not environmental information for the
purpose of those Regulations, under section 14(1) of the Freedom of
Information Act.

Please note that under section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act the
council considers it is entitled to treat any further request for
information of a similar nature or on a similar topic as vexatious, and
such a request will not receive a response.

You are of course entitled to approach the Information Commissioner's
office for their view on the matter. I confirm that the council will
give the Commissioner every assistance, and that this will include
making the valuation report available to him, should he so require.

Regards
Rhiannon Hood

Rhiannon Hood
Assistant Head of Law and Governance
Commercial and Corporate Services Sunderland City Council
Tel: 0191 561 1005
Email: xxxxxxxx.xxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
www.sunderland.gov.uk