8th November 2025
To: The Information Commissioner’s Office
Subject: Misuse of “vexatious” designation by Stockport Council to suppress genuine public concerns
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to raise a formal concern about Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council’s repeated and improper use of the term “vexatious” to block legitimate public enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations.
This particular experience relates to the construction and operation of Vale View Primary School, which opened in 2011. From the outset, before the school was built, local residents and I raised serious and evidence-based concerns about the safety of the school’s traffic arrangements — including inadequate access roads, unsafe drop-off points, and poor visibility. These concerns were later echoed by officers within Greater Manchester Police shortly after the school opened.
Rather than engaging constructively with these concerns, the Council labelled my attempts to obtain information about the school’s planning, highways assessments, and safety audits as vexatious. This effectively shut down public scrutiny of decisions that had clear implications for child safety and community wellbeing.
The term vexatious is intended to protect public authorities from genuinely harassing or manifestly unreasonable correspondence. However, in this case, it appears to have been used as a tool to silence reasonable questions and to deter residents from pursuing transparency about matters of genuine public interest.
I have always conducted my correspondence courteously and with the sole purpose of ensuring children’s safety. I lost my own child in a road accident many years ago, and I have since dedicated my time to advocating for safer roads amongst other issues. My motivation is entirely one of public safety, not personal grievance.
I therefore believe Stockport Council’s actions may amount to an abuse of Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, and I respectfully ask the Information Commissioner to review their use of this designation in my case.
In particular, I request that the ICO:
- Review the Council’s decision to apply the “vexatious” label to my information requests regarding Vale View Primary School.
- Consider whether this label has been used as a means to suppress legitimate public interest scrutiny.
- Provide guidance or enforcement action if necessary to ensure that Stockport Council handles future FOI/EIR requests lawfully and fairly.
I am happy to provide copies of correspondence, requests, and responses that demonstrate this pattern of behaviour.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your response.
Yours faithfully,
Sheila Oliver
Editor, The Romiley Gazette
28TH MAY 2012
Stockport Council Executive Meeting Question asked regarding the dangerous traffic situation around the toxic waste dump school in North Reddish.
29TH MAY 2012
I rang Stockport Council Democratic Services and asked the wonderful Jonathan Valli, Committee Clerk, if my question was allowed or whether it was considered “vexatious”.
He told me he checked the matter with Council Solicitor, Barry Khan, who said it was indeed a vexatious question. This was a council meeting question again refused under the FOIA, but not asked under that.
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Observations of someone impartial:-
“I visited Harcourt St area and Fir Road area on Wednesday 13th August 2008 to observe the road layout and general appearances. The timing was between 13.30 and 14.30. The weather was fine and sunny. The schools were on holiday.
Observations
1) Harcourt St as such is a series of artificially blocked off sections and it is impossible to follow in one go the full length of the road. I saw one access point to the green area which is presumed to be the proposed school. It is a pleasant enough road with off road parking for some houses and with adjacent Sts running to Gorton Road being terraced houses with limited parking. I don’t know what part if any Harcourt St will actually be used to access the school. If it is then the current layout will make for a very congested area with confused access points.
2) I suspect the main access to the school will be in the Longford Rd, Mill Lane and Windmill Lane one way system. All these streets were very busy even at the time I visited. The right turn from Mill Lane to Windmill Lane, which I did, is almost impossible and very dangerous because of limited visibility.
Longford St is a mainly terraced, one way street from Gorton Rd with limited residential parking. I can’t imagine residents being too happy with a greater influx of traffic. Probably everything going to the school would come down either this street or Windmill Lane.
Windmill Lane is full of bends, narrow in parts, unsuitable for a lot more parking and I would imagine that School buses would find it tricky to negotiate. As I say the turn into Mill Lane and from Mill Lane into Windmill Lane is very dodgy.
Mill Lane is a dead end leading from Gorton Road into which it feeds as a one way st and as a two way narrow lane from its’ junction with Longford St and Windmill Lane. Basically it is a country lane with some very nice housing developments providing quite a bit of traffic. At its’ dead end it appears to be a walking access to open ground.
I am guessing this is where the proposed turning circle is to be put. Nothing is ever impossible and certainly walkers who visit would equally find it useful to park their cars in such an area. However at the least it would destroy that part of a very nice quiet, narrow country lane and at worst the narrow width of the lane would make it extremely difficult for buses to safely travel. Also if buses are using the turning circle how will the cars of parents turn round, the road is too narrow for that.
Of all the streets, to my mind Mill Lane presented the greater problems.
SHEILA I THINK ROADS ARE CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THEIR WIDTH AND THIS WILL DETERMINE HOW AND BY WHAT THEY CAN BE USED!!!.
For instance Emergency vehicles (fire engines and ambulances) require a certain access width AND ESPECIALLY TO THE LARGEST SCHOOL IN STOCKPORT.
3 I took the opportunity to visit the Fir Road School. What a contrast. The road access is excellent. I know there is a reservoir behind but would this restrict its’ expansion? It was much more pleasant to drive there than the difficult narrow and congested area around Harcourt St
4 Someone wrote in the Express that the toffs in Harcourt St were bullying the much poorer people around Fir Road. I am no expert in evaluating house prices. Whilst there are some very nice houses especially in Mill Lane the houses around Fir Road and Longford Rd West seemed actually better and in no way did it appear a poor area compared to the streets between Gorton Rd and Harcourt St.
Conclusion
I believe the evidence shows there is a traffic problem especially around Mill Lane. Fir Rd appears to have much better access with easier parking and bus access.
Recommendations
1 I think you should get a photograph/video record of the 2 areas.
2 You should obtain from Traffic Services the various width classifications of streets along with any recommendations of limits of traffic usage, parking etc.
Part of this should be any considerations that need to be made for Emergency Plans ( what happens if the school sets on fire)
3 Someone should measure the pavement widths, and road widths of Harcourt, Windmill, Longford Rd, Mill Lane, Longford Rd West and Browning Rd.
Hope this helps and please come back if something is not clear enough.”
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The school opened in September 2011. By December 2011 a report from the police had been put before the Council expressing serious issues with the traffic around the school and concerns about safety at this location (please see below).
Please have a look at the documents below and see whether you consider my raising this matter as “vexatious”.
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Sent: Thu 8/2/2007 06:48
To: Cllr Mark Weldon
Subject: Fw: Irregularities at Stockport Council
Dear Councillor Weldon
I need to present a fuller case to the District Auditor, whom I greatly respect, and who is already looking into iffyness at Stockport Council regarding consultations. If this consultation had been done properly, we wouldn’t now be facing these problems. The copy of the email below to her is just to give her an indication of the problems.
78% of the public who responded left the Harcourt Street consultation meeting with questions about traffic problems. The traffic reports, although in the Council’s possession at the end of June 2006, were not presented to the public at those meetings in August and September. Now, without consultation and at the very last minute traffic changes costing tens of thousands of pounds are being introduced and Nick Whelan had no confidence at last Monday’s Tame Valley meeting that any of this would work.
In addition, your flippant comments about the cost of all this are very, very worrying.
Sheila
Proposed drop off area “inadequate” discovered only three days before the planning meeting.
Only on 24th July 2007, only a couple of days before the decision making planning meeting, did Nick Whelan, Head of Highways at Stockport Council, discover theat the drop off area within the school was not going to be adequate. This is despite my having a meeting with him and a local resident the previous January to explain the traffic issues to him.
The Highways Officer, who again “didn’t realise” about the traffic situation at the school. Why not when we had already pointed matters out to him the previous January in a meeting?
The traffic from most of the houses within the red lines has to exit via narrow Mill Lane, on which the school entrance is situated. Local people and I pointed out to the Council and planning officer Jim Seymour, and Nick Whelan in particular, the existence of all these houses forced to use that one narrow exit road. Our comments were completely ignored.
The photos below show the proposed school entrance site before the 500+ pupil school was built.
