How residents were dismissed — until the Council was forced to apologise.

22nd January 2026

In 2009, residents of Stockport discovered that their names, home addresses and handwritten signatures had been published on the Council’s website as part of publicly accessible committee papers.

These were not redacted.
They were not anonymised.
And they remained online for days after the Council was alerted.

The individuals affected raised the issue with elected members, expecting concern and swift action.

What they received instead was dismissal.

“Please remove me from your spam list”

One resident, Sheila Oliver, contacted councillors directly to raise the data protection breach. The response from an executive councillor was not to investigate the claim, but to rebuke the resident.

In an email, Councillor Mark Weldon wrote:

“Please remove me from your spam list. I have no need for your repeated emails full of misinformation, disinformation, and amateur legal advice… Constant irrelevant emails can have the effect of disguising real issues amongst unwanted irrelevant spam.”

At that point, no checks had been made to establish whether the allegation was true.

Wed 20/05/2009 15:54

Mrs Oliver,

Please remove me from your spam list. I have no need for your repeated emails full of misinformation , disinformation, and amateur legal advice. If you have a proper issue to raise please put it in writing to me at my town hall mail address. Constant irrelevant emails can have the effect of disguising real issues amongst unwanted irrelevant spam.

Mark Weldon

From: Sheila Oliver [mailto:sheilaoliver@ntlworld.com]
Sent: Wed 20/05/2009 06:55
To: Cllr Mark Weldon; Cllr Dave Goddard; Cllr David White
Subject: Data protection issues – for you this time

Dear Councillors

You did nothing when our names, addresses and signatures were up on the Council’s website and they were left up there for days after the Council was informed until the police were contacted.

Well, yours are up there too.  I bet yours get removed PDQ!  Let’s hope (fervently) that you are not the victims of fraud as a result of this.

Yours

Sheila

The facts, once checked

The issue was real.

Following escalation — and only after external pressure from the Information Commissioner — the Council removed the documents from public access.

An apology followed.

In an email dated May 2009, Mike Iveson, Head of Committee Services at Stockport Council, wrote to one of the affected residents:

“I very much regret that the addresses and signatures were not removed or redacted beforehand… All such questions were removed almost immediately upon this being pointed out and the procedure discontinued.”

A subsequent message confirmed:

“The question and response have now been removed from public access via the Council’s web site.”

In other words:

  • Personal data had been published
  • It should not have been
  • And the Council accepted that it was wrong

What this says about how residents are treated

This episode raises uncomfortable questions.

Not about whether mistakes happen — they do.

But about what happens when residents raise concerns.

In this case:

  • The warning was accurate
  • The risk was real
  • The response was dismissive
  • And the apology came only after escalation

Had the issue been taken seriously at the outset, residents might have been spared:

  • Days of exposure of personal information
  • Anxiety about potential fraud or misuse
  • And the need to pursue the matter further than should have been necessary

Accountability is not optional

This is not about personalities.
It is about process.

When residents flag a potential breach involving their safety and privacy, the minimum expectation is that the concern is checked before it is dismissed.

Council taxpayers are entitled to expect:

  • Care with their personal data
  • Respect when raising legitimate issues
  • And explanations when things go wrong

In this case, the explanation arrived — but only after the damage had already been done.

Why this still matters

Data protection is not a technicality.
It is about trust.

If concerns can be brushed off as “spam” without verification, then the system relies not on safeguards, but on luck.

Residents should not need to prove harm before being believed.

They should not need to escalate to be heard.

The Romiley Gazette believes that transparency, recorded reasons, and accountability are essential to local democracy — not optional extras.