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Newry.ie requested information in May from Newry, Mourne and Down District Council regarding a document produced at last month's meeting of the Albert Basin Task and Finish Group and we received a response last week.
There was bewilderment when members of the group attending the 21 May meeting were confronted with a draft "Albert Basin City Park - Public Consultation (Revised)" document that had many questions relating to housing and commercial development on the Albert Basin Site. It was a draft on what was to be included in a survey which the public would complete, giving their ideas and thoughts on Newry's new long promised 'jewel in the crown', a public park at the Albert Basin!
In 2017 councillors unanimously confirmed Newry, Mourne and Down Council's "commitment to a full, 15-acre community park project on the Albert Basin site in Newry." Fifteen acres is the full size of the Albert Basin site and housing or commercial development were never imagined as something that would form part of the park, by those who proposed the motion, so the addition of questions particularly about housing caused a lot of concern, with members of Newry 2020 asking later "who in the Senior Management Team agreed that the questionnaire proposing housing and retail development on the site should be distributed in its current form?"
Following discussion at the 21 May meeting it was agreed to convene a new meeting a week later, to agree on another draft of the document, and this removed questions relating to housing and commercial development from the Consultation Survey document.
Seeing that the draft document presented at the 21 May meeting was "revised", In a Freedom of Information request Newry.ie asked the council for a copy of all previous versions of the ABCP Public Consultation document but this has been refused.
Explaining their refusal the reply said "Newry Mourne Down Council do hold information in relation to this part of your request in draft form. However Regulation 12(4)(d) of the Environmental regulations allows a public authority to refuse the release of information if “the request relates to material which is still in the course of completion, to unfinished documents or to incomplete data”.
I conducted the following public interest test when considering whether to disclose the information:
Reasons for disclosure: Matters effecting the environment are of public interest; Demonstrates openness and transparency
Reasons against disclosure: The working draft documents in the course of completion; The final Consultation document is now complete."
The reasons against outweigh the reasons for disclosure and in this case Reg 12(4)(d) is enforced."
The reason's against ie "The working draft documents in the course of completion" seem strange as it doesn't really make sense, ie the draft documents before the "revised" version obviously ARE completed, and as for "The final Consultation document is now complete" - our request was relating to previous versions and not the final version!
When we asked "Who requested that “Housing” should be included in the Survey?" and bearing in mind our FOI request was relating specifically to the draft Albert Basin City Park - Public Consultation (Revised) document, the answer was short "Housing is not in the final survey available as per the above link"
We also asked "Was housing mentioned as a potential component of the Albert Basin Park in any documents given to the council by the Consultants Otium Leisure Consultancy from their 30th January 2020 Stakeholder meeting at Monaghan Row." and their reply was lengthier but again possibly asks more questions than it answers.
The reply stated "As part of the process for establishing the public consultation for the Albert Basin, consideration of the Banbridge/Newry and Mourne Area Plan (BNMAP) 2015 was carried out. Social housing and commercial development is outlined in the Banbridge/Newry and Mourne Area Plan (BNMAP) 2015 and these requirements have previously been presented to the Council’s Albert Basin Task and Finish Working Group."
The final ABCP Consultation Survey document can be filled in via WWW.NEWRYMOURNEDOWN.ORG
