Saturday Times covers Pensford Field
Volunteers out in force for Times article. Join us for work days on 8 March and 12 April
Dear Friends,
We were amazed to be contacted by the Times this week and to appear today in the Times on such a busy news day. We were also truly touched by the number of local people who turned up when the Times came to photograph volunteers in the field yesterday.
Fiona Hamilton wrote the piece and took a lot of trouble to check the facts. We will let the article speak for itself but the main thrust is the Council’s handling of this and how all of this arose from a meeting in March 2024 between Cllr Gareth Roberts (Leader of the Council), and Sir Mark Rowley (Chair of the Trustees of Dose of Nature and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner). We found out about this meeting through a Freedom of Information Request. There are different interpretations as to the outcome of that meeting in the absence of any Council minutes. Lord Darroch of Kew, our patron, told the Times that the Council’s approach as “a bewildering piece of mishandling.”
This week, we are having tripartite discussions with the Council and Dose of Nature on the basis that the lease is awarded to Dose of Nature in September. We continue to press our case that the Council does not have powers to award the lease to a health charity but we are happy to discuss if there is any way for both charities to co-exist.
We were grateful to receive yesterday a letter from the Council confirming we do not have to demolish the studio.
Sadly on the same day, we received a baffling response to our Freedom of Information Request.
our request was first made in early November
we were told it was too complex to respond to in 20 days
then we were told that it would be too costly to respond to in late December
we reduced the scope of the request and were told the 20 days clock would start ticking again
we were then told at the end of January that the Council was considering the public interest test to withhold information so more time was needed and we got our response yesterday - 60 pages of stuff we had already seen and then the reliance on the public interest excuse for ….. we know not what.
we can appeal -the Council has 40 days to respond before we can go to the Information Commissioner.
Something to hide? Regret on the part of the Council about disclosing the March meeting ? Is this really acting in the spirit of open democracy? My understanding is that the public interest test carries little weight once a decision is made public.. But the Council can string this out for many more months more…………
Thank you for your support.
All best,
Sarah
Sarah Atkins
Chair of Pensford Field Environmental Trust
