Confirmed TPO

[Gary Prentice]

2 minutes ago, daltontrees said:

Judicial Review?

 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Gary Prentice
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[daltontrees]

I am assuming he means a 'challenge' under s.288 of the validity of an Order on point of law.

[Jon Heuch]

On 15/05/2019 at 12:33, EdwardC said:

If you want proof it was confirmed ask for a copy of the land charge records, it should be on there.

 

Chris, you must JR an Order within 6 weeks of the date of confirmation, even if confirmed late. After that you can't challenge it in any legal proceedings whatsoever.

i) good point about land charges but.....they charge and typically their starting charge isn't cheap. I haven't tried an informal approach though.

ii) Quite correct about not being able to initiate such a challenge after the time limit, but at the same time if the council were to attempt a prosecution they would  have to show beyond reasonable doubt that an offence had been committed.....and without a confirmed order (except for the newest ones) they can't do so. The onus is on the council.

 

I now have data from several councils on what proportion of TPOs served have been confirmed......it's quite damning - a TPO without confirmation cannot be assumed to be confirmed.

 

As for the photocopying lark, we almost all have to deal with photocopies - typically the one made when the order was initially served. One council (Thanet to be blunt) that admits their legal department don't have any of the original TPO documents prior to a certain date. The photocopy they do have of their large TPO covering much of Broadstairs (dated 1956) does not include all of the areas listed as protected - whoops! I know they have no evidence of confirmation of any of their older TPOs...…..problem! Well they did have an unprotected spreadsheet listing dates of confirmation (many of which were a Sunday)…..but they have lost the spreadsheet (I have it!). Other councils may have similar problems but I haven't come across one quite so bad.

 

Rumour has it that they may be recruiting a tree officer - sounds like a challenging job!

[tree77]

8 hours ago, Jon Heuch said:

i) good point about land charges but.....they charge and typically their starting charge isn't cheap. I haven't tried an informal approach though.

ii) Quite correct about not being able to initiate such a challenge after the time limit, but at the same time if the council were to attempt a prosecution they would  have to show beyond reasonable doubt that an offence had been committed.....and without a confirmed order (except for the newest ones) they can't do so. The onus is on the council.

 

I now have data from several councils on what proportion of TPOs served have been confirmed......it's quite damning - a TPO without confirmation cannot be assumed to be confirmed.

 

As for the photocopying lark, we almost all have to deal with photocopies - typically the one made when the order was initially served. One council (Thanet to be blunt) that admits their legal department don't have any of the original TPO documents prior to a certain date. The photocopy they do have of their large TPO covering much of Broadstairs (dated 1956) does not include all of the areas listed as protected - whoops! I know they have no evidence of confirmation of any of their older TPOs...…..problem! Well they did have an unprotected spreadsheet listing dates of confirmation (many of which were a Sunday)…..but they have lost the spreadsheet (I have it!). Other councils may have similar problems but I haven't come across one quite so bad.

 

Rumour has it that they may be recruiting a tree officer - sounds like a challenging job!

 

 

 

Does the land charge show on the tile dead's for the property?, 

[daltontrees]

19 hours ago, Jon Heuch said:

i) good point about land charges but.....they charge and typically their starting charge isn't cheap. I haven't tried an informal approach though.

ii) Quite correct about not being able to initiate such a challenge after the time limit, but at the same time if the council were to attempt a prosecution they would  have to show beyond reasonable doubt that an offence had been committed.....and without a confirmed order (except for the newest ones) they can't do so. The onus is on the council.

 

I now have data from several councils on what proportion of TPOs served have been confirmed......it's quite damning - a TPO without confirmation cannot be assumed to be confirmed.

 

As for the photocopying lark, we almost all have to deal with photocopies - typically the one made when the order was initially served. One council (Thanet to be blunt) that admits their legal department don't have any of the original TPO documents prior to a certain date. The photocopy they do have of their large TPO covering much of Broadstairs (dated 1956) does not include all of the areas listed as protected - whoops! I know they have no evidence of confirmation of any of their older TPOs...…..problem! Well they did have an unprotected spreadsheet listing dates of confirmation (many of which were a Sunday)…..but they have lost the spreadsheet (I have it!). Other councils may have similar problems but I haven't come across one quite so bad.

 

Rumour has it that they may be recruiting a tree officer - sounds like a challenging job!

My local Council (South lanarkshire Council) has admitted it has no copies of its TPOs before 1996. They're all delineated in the Local Plan but no paperwork. An area of 1,800km2.

[daltontrees]

3 hours ago, EdwardC said:

Could you not serve them with an FOI request, which in light of the Markinson decision shouldn't cost anything. I  emphasise shouldn't, because you will almost inevitably be charged.

There's a FoI exemption for "Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than" under an FoI request. So if land charges can be obtained by a conventional public process (free or otherwise), an FoI could be refused.

[daltontrees]

11 minutes ago, EdwardC said:

If it's reasonably accessible then there's no need for an FOI request. I doubt land charge information is. And how many Councils still charge for TPO's, and other stuff, when they shouldn't be. How many have heard of David Markinson v The Information Commissioner, if they have do they care about the decision.

I have been on the receiving end of this. "Reasonably accessible" doesn't have to mean free, nor does it have to mean available from the Council. Anyone (but usually conveyancers) can obtain land charges information for a fee from the Land Registry. I would expect a Council to reject such a request.

I amn't aware of that case, I'll have a look.

[daltontrees]

I've had a quick look at tthe decision. Looks like the Council refused a FoI request correctly on the basis that the info was available as 'environmental' info by another established process at its office. The decision arrived at a criticism of how much the Council charged for the information rather than that it wrongly refused FoI or wrongly made charges. The amount was just too much.

I had this recently at a Council who wanted to charge a very large amount for a print-out of a planning permission or any part of it. I visited the office instead and got the whole file for free on my memory stick.

[Gary Prentice]

1 hour ago, daltontrees said:

My local Council (South lanarkshire Council) has admitted it has no copies of its TPOs before 1996. They're all delineated in the Local Plan but no paperwork. An area of 1,800km2.

Does that mean that they would be unable to prosecute contraventions of pre-1996 TPO's?

[daltontrees]

I'm going to stick my neck out and add that I don't think public access to TPOs comes under the Environmental Information Regulations because it is prescribed separately, predating the EIR by  14 years down there.