Group refers council to FOI tsar
WAVERLEY Borough Council is being investigated for allegedly covering up details of meetings it has held on the future of the Farnham Brightwells Scheme.
The council has been referred to the Information Commissioner after members of East Street Action, which opposes the planned development, complained that freedom of information (FOI) requests it submitted were either improperly rejected, or responded to in such scant detail as to be ‘virtually pointless’.
In many cases, FOI requests have been rejected on the basis that the information asked for was said to be commercially sensitive.
The row is symptomatic of an escalating scepticism about the viability of the scheme, as well as growing suspicion that progress has stalled because developer Crest Nicholson has failed to attract the necessary investment to proceed.
The plan includes building a six-screen cinema, new shops and 239 new homes.
Campaigners are particularly keen to obtain details of discussions regarding the future of the Gostrey Day Centre, which could see it moved to the Memorial Hall off West Street.
Celia Sandars, a member East Street Action, said the group became aware of monthly meetings taking place in 2013 of a committee called the Brightwells Steering Group, made up of council officers and representatives from Crest Nicholson.
She said: “We sent FOIs to obtain notes of the meetings, but these came back in such a redacted form it got to the point where we were very concerned.”
She originally contacted theInformationCommission- er in February, who ruled that, while the council was justified in redacting some information from notes, more information should have been released.
The current complaint to the commissioner follows frustration at what Mrs Sandars perceives as inadequate responses to meetings held this year.
“The discussions cannot all be related to commercially sensitive financial issues,” she said this week.
A spokesman for Waverley confirmed that the council had been referred to the Information Commissioner.