The Romiley Gazette

21st September 2026

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

PO Box 4771

Coventry

CV4 0EH

20/09/2026

Dear Ombudsman,

Complaint about Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council: a sustained pattern of disproportionate and procedurally improper use of “vexatious” and “unreasonable actions” designations against a resident spanning more than a decade and multiple unrelated matters

I am writing to make a formal complaint about Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (“the Council”). This complaint concerns the Council’s own conduct and administrative practice — specifically, its repeated, longstanding, and in my view disproportionate use of “vexatious” (under FOIA/EIR) and “unreasonable actions” designations against me, across multiple, factually unconnected matters, over a period of more than a decade.

I want to be clear at the outset about what I am, and am not, asking the Ombudsman to do, because I understand jurisdictional boundaries matter to how this complaint should be handled.

What I am not asking

I am not asking the Ombudsman to overturn any specific decision made by the Information Commissioner’s Office, or any specific “vexatious” finding made by the Council under section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. I understand that individual FOIA/EIR refusals have their own statutory route of challenge (internal review, then complaint to the ICO, then appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights)), and I have pursued that route separately where appropriate.

What I am asking

I am asking the Ombudsman to investigate the Council’s own administrative conduct: specifically, whether the Council has repeatedly applied “vexatious”/”unreasonable actions” labels to me in a way that is disproportionate, inconsistent with its own published policy, and not properly evidenced on a case-by-case basis, and whether this amounts to maladministration causing me a significant and continuing injustice. This is a complaint about process and conduct, not about the merits of any single FOIA/EIR decision.

Summary of the pattern

Over more than fifteen years, I have raised concerns with the Council about several entirely separate matters: land contamination and school safety at the former Harcourt Street site (Vale View Primary School, North Reddish); the Council’s treatment of the late Michael Parnell; and, most recently, planning enforcement and protected woodland at Padden Brook, Romiley. In each case, my questions, FOI/EIR requests, and formal complaints have at various points been labelled “vexatious” or treated as “unreasonably persistent,” resulting in restrictions on how and whether I could communicate with the Council. In several instances, matters I raised and was told were vexatious, unfounded, or not the Council’s responsibility were later shown to be correct — including undersizing of Vale View Primary School (later admitted in a Council report), road safety dangers at the same site (later the subject of police intervention and remedial works), and land protections at Padden Brook (which the Council initially denied existed at all, before admitting the land carries three separate protected designations).

I set out the two clearest documented threads below. I have substantially more material, including correspondence, FOI/EIR decision notices, ICO case references and Council policy documents, which I can provide in full.

Thread one: Harcourt Street / Vale View Primary School (2012–2019)

• 13 November 2012: a letter from the Council (Jonathan Vali, cc Steve Houston) confirmed the Council Leader personally decided a question I had submitted about Vale View was “vexatious” and blocked it from that month’s Executive meeting.
• 21 June 2012 and 20 December 2012: further letters confirm additional questions were separately ruled vexatious by the Council Solicitor and not put to committee.
• 13 June 2013: a further question, about sports facilities/fields at Harcourt Street, was ruled vexatious by the Chair and not put to the Executive Meeting.
• 13 July 2012: on the same day the Council Solicitor again called my questions “vexatious,” a comparable site elsewhere had to be evacuated for landfill gas — the same category of risk I had been raising about Harcourt Street for approximately six years.
• I subsequently learned that at least one of the officers involved in labelling my Harcourt Street/Vale View concerns “vexatious” (as far back as 2019) has since gone on to apply the same designation to my separate and unconnected Padden Brook correspondence.
• I complained to the Local Government Ombudsman previously about this matter; the caseworker (Chris Upjohn) found nothing wrong. I respectfully consider that this earlier LGO review did not have before it the fuller pattern now evidenced, spanning a second, unrelated site more than a decade later.

Thread two: Padden Brook (2024–2026)

• A formal complaint I submitted to the Council on 21 August 2026 about prolonged delay in planning enforcement at Padden Brook (raised initially more than two years earlier) received a reply from Vicki Bates, Chief Governance Officer and Monitoring Officer, on 24 August 2026, confirming that all my FOI/EIR requests concerning Padden Brook are treated as vexatious and will not even be acknowledged, and that all other correspondence on the subject will be treated as “unreasonably persistent” under the Council’s own Unacceptable Actions by Complainants Policy (April 2026), with my emails diverted to an inbox read only periodically.
• The Council’s own April 2026 policy states that such restrictions should be a “last resort,” and must be tailored and proportionate rather than blanket (I understand this to be reflected in sections 2.2, 3.6, 9.1, 9.4, 10.1, 10.2 and 14 of that policy). I do not consider the restriction imposed on me meets that standard: it is a blanket restriction covering an entire subject area rather than a tailored response to specific conduct, and it was imposed alongside a refusal to specify which of my communications were said to be “abusive and defamatory.”
• An internal review of an earlier Padden Brook EIR request (ref IR 101007866729, on request ref EIR 101007834786), completed 1 July 2025 by the Council’s Information Governance Manager, upheld a vexatious refusal citing approximately 230 emails sent since August 2024. I do not accept that volume of correspondence alone, on a matter of ongoing and unresolved concern which the Council itself took months to answer even once, establishes vexatiousness — nor does it, in my submission, justify extending that designation to every future communication on the subject without individual assessment.
• The Council’s own correspondence (an 8 October 2024 email prepared by the then Chief Planning Officer) subsequently admitted that the Padden Brook woodland is a Local Wildlife Site under the local plan, and that a 1974 planning refusal on the same land had already identified it as protected amenity land — directly contradicting the Council’s earlier position, given to me, that the land had no protection at all.
• Separately, I am the Editor of a local newspaper (the Romiley Gazette). A number of the communications counted against me by the Council as “unreasonably persistent” were, in substance, standard pre-publication requests for comment sent to the Council before running a story — ordinary journalistic practice, not a personal grievance campaign.

Why I consider this maladministration causing injustice

• The Council has applied the same serious label — vexatious / unreasonably persistent — to me across at least three unconnected subject areas, over more than a decade, including via officers who moved between cases. I consider this indicates an institutional practice of using the label to manage a persistent critic, rather than a genuine, individualised assessment of each request’s merits, as the Council’s own policy requires.
• In multiple instances, the substance of what I was raising was later shown to be correct (school undersizing, road safety risk, and the existence of protected land status at Padden Brook), which I submit is directly relevant to whether the underlying communications were genuinely vexatious or were, in fact, legitimate and ultimately vindicated scrutiny.
• The restrictions imposed have a serious practical effect: my correspondence is diverted to an inbox read only periodically, meaning urgent matters (including, at Padden Brook, an active risk to a retaining wall supporting a road serving some twenty-four homes) may not receive timely attention.
• As a working citizen journalist, being formally branded vexatious by the local authority I report on is professionally damaging in a way that goes beyond the inconvenience to an ordinary resident.

What I am asking the Ombudsman to do

• Investigate whether the Council’s use of “vexatious”/”unreasonable actions” designations against me, considered as a pattern across the Harcourt Street and Padden Brook matters (and any other instances the Council’s own records may show), amounts to maladministration.
• Consider whether the Council has complied with its own Unacceptable Actions by Complainants Policy (April 2026), in particular its requirements that restrictions be a last resort, tailored, proportionate, and individually assessed rather than applied blanket to an entire subject area.
• If maladministration is found, recommend an appropriate remedy. I would ask that any recommended remedy specifically include the Council writing to the Information Commissioner’s Office to correct the record as to the history of my requests being treated as vexatious, and lifting or substantially narrowing the current communications restriction so that individual future requests are assessed on their own merits.
• I recognise the Ombudsman cannot itself direct the ICO’s own assessment of any live or future FOIA/EIR request. My request is that the Council be required to communicate accurately with the ICO about the Council’s own conduct, as a remedy for the Council’s maladministration — not that the Ombudsman substitute its judgment for the ICO’s on any FOIA/EIR matter.

Steps already taken

• I have raised each underlying matter with the Council directly and, where relevant, sought internal review of FOI/EIR refusals.
• I submitted a separate complaint to the Ombudsman on 24 August 2026 specifically about the Padden Brook planning enforcement delay and the communications restriction; I would ask that this new, wider complaint be read alongside that one, or that the two be considered together, as they concern the same underlying pattern of conduct.
• I have separately raised the Padden Brook EIR handling with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
• I have written previously, on more than one occasion, directly to the Information Commissioner about the pattern of vexatious designations, without a substantive reply.

Enclosures available on request

• 13 November 2012, 21 June 2012, 20 December 2012 and 13 June 2013 Council letters confirming Harcourt Street questions ruled vexatious
• 21 August 2026 Stage 1 complaint to the Council re Padden Brook, and Vicki Bates’ reply of 24 August 2026
• The Council’s Unacceptable Actions by Complainants Policy (April 2026)
• 1 July 2025 internal review decision (ref IR 101007866729) upholding a vexatious EIR refusal
• 8 October 2024 Council email admitting Padden Brook’s protected status
• Correspondence with the Information Commissioner

I am happy to provide any of the above in full, along with further supporting documentation, on request. Given the volume of material I hold across both matters, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with a caseworker how best to present it for the investigation.

Yours faithfully,

Sheila Oliver

Editor, The Romiley Gazette