The Romiley Gazette

10th September 2026

Vexatious? Moi?

Mr Paul Arnold
Chief Executive (currently holding the Commissioner’s responsibilities)
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Wednesday, 9 September 2026

Dear Mr Arnold

Re: Unanswered correspondence of 2017 concerning Alex Ganotis and Stockport Council’s handling of my Freedom of Information and Data Protection rights, and the ICO’s own failure to respond

I am writing to formally complain that two letters I sent to your office in November 2017 have never received a substantive reply, from either the then Information Commissioner or her successor, and to ask that this office now address the matters they raised.

Background

On 9 November 2017 I wrote to Elizabeth Denham raising serious concerns about Alex Ganotis, at that time a Group Manager employed by the ICO while simultaneously serving as Leader of Stockport Council. My concern was that Stockport Council, under his leadership, was continuing to fail to respond to Freedom of Information Act/Environmental Information Regulations 2004 requests going back to April of that year, and that it was inappropriate for an ICO employee to be presiding over such conduct. That letter was copied to your predecessor as Deputy Chief Executive.

On 23 November 2017 I wrote again, this time directly to Councillor Ganotis as Council Leader, setting out that the Council’s repeated public branding of me as a “vexatious” complainant was itself an offence under the Data Protection Act, since it amounted to holding and disseminating inaccurate personal data about me. I set out, point by point, that every substantive claim I had made about the Harcourt Street/Vale View Primary School development — that the school was being built too small, that the site was contaminated, that it would flood, that it would create a dangerous traffic situation, that the promised replacement playing fields would not materialise, and that the project’s costs were rising in a way that raised questions — was subsequently proved correct, and that my requests to have the “vexatious” label withdrawn were nonetheless refused. That letter was copied to your office, among others.

I received no reply to either letter. I do not recall ever receiving so much as an acknowledgement.

I have separately written in the same vein to your office on more than one occasion over the years, both before and after 2017, without any substantive response.

What I am asking the ICO to do now

1. Investigate and respond substantively to the Data Protection Act complaint set out in my letter of 23 November 2017: that Stockport Council held and disseminated inaccurate personal data about me — the “vexatious” label — over a period of years, refused to correct it when the underlying claims were vindicated, and that this continued after my complaint was made.

2. Address the conflict of interest inherent in an ICO employee simultaneously serving as Leader of a council that was, at the same time, failing to meet its own statutory obligations under the FOIA/EIR to me as a requester.

3. Explain why neither of my 2017 letters, nor my earlier correspondence, received any response from this office, and confirm what safeguards now exist to ensure that a complaint of this nature does not simply go unanswered for the better part of a decade.

I appreciate that a great deal has changed at the ICO since 2017, including the change in leadership you now oversee, and I do not for a moment suggest that you personally bear responsibility for how this was handled at the time. But the underlying complaints were never resolved, and I would be grateful for confirmation that they are now being looked at, together with a substantive response within a reasonable period.

I have retained the original correspondence and the supporting documentary evidence referred to above, and can supply copies on request.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Mrs Sheila Oliver

9th September 2026

1st September 2026

Internal correspondence from Stockport Council shows that questions raised by local campaigner Sheila Oliver about the controversial North Reddish primary school and children’s centre project were twice ruled “vexatious” and excluded from public meetings or left unanswered.

The project, built on the former Harcourt Street playing field — a site with a history as a clay pit and industrial tip — was already the subject of public concern over contamination, cost growth and delays. Early internal notes from 2005 recorded incomplete cost estimates that omitted external works, a substantial increase in floor area, and a budget fixed at £5,736,649 before full ground investigations were complete. Later testing confirmed elevated levels of lead, arsenic and asbestos. Public reports eventually put the projected cost at £8.6 million amid lengthy delays and remediation work.

Against that background, three documents illustrate how the council handled scrutiny.

A letter dated 22 August 2011, signed on behalf of the Democratic Services Manager, acknowledged questions submitted for the Executive meeting of 8 August 2011. A reply was provided on a separate car-lease matter. On the Harcourt Street question, however, the Council Solicitor had advised that it was vexatious “and therefore no response has been provided.”

Fifteen months later, on 7 December 2012, Oliver emailed Democratic Services (copying the council leader) with two questions for the Executive meeting of 17 December. She asked to see all background papers on the “toxic waste dump primary school at North Reddish” going back five years, noting that refusal to disclose could constitute a criminal offence. She also attached a BAM Construction contract that, she said, required a football pitch as part of the works and asked why none existed. She indicated she had circulated the issues more widely and would report any continued refusal.

A reply dated 20 December 2012 stated that the Leader of the Council had agreed the two questions related to matters previously deemed vexatious. Neither was put to the meeting.

The pattern is clear: by 2011–2012 the council had decided that questions about the North Reddish scheme fell into the “vexatious” category and would not be answered through the public-question process at all.

Whether that classification was justified remains open to debate. The underlying subjects — access to historical papers on a publicly funded project involving contamination and major cost escalation, and delivery of a specific contractual obligation — were matters of legitimate public interest. Persistence in pressing those points does not automatically render the questions vexatious, particularly where new or unresolved issues (such as the missing pitch) were being raised. Councils possess formal powers to exclude repetitive or burdensome requests, yet applying that power to shut down scrutiny of a high-profile capital scheme with a documented history of problems invites questions about transparency and accountability.

What this does show is a local authority that chose to close the formal channels of public questioning on a project that had already generated significant local controversy.

1st September 2026

A January 2007 letter from Stockport Council’s then Corporate Director of Children’s Services has thrown fresh light on how the controversial Vale View Primary School project was presented to the public in its early stages.

In the letter, dated 22 January 2007, Andrew Webb responded to a Freedom of Information request from local resident Sheila Oliver. She had asked why the Fir Tree school site had been ruled out and requested the minutes of meetings about the proposed new school on Harcourt Street.

Webb’s reply was clear on the first point. He said the only site considered feasible was Harcourt Street, which had been earmarked for a new school for around 30 years. Fir Tree was further from the centre of the pupil population, and parental preference favoured Harcourt Street. He referred back to a July 2005 School Organisation Committee paper that had reached the same conclusion.

On the request for meeting minutes, however, the answer was a refusal. Webb confirmed that the Council held the information but said retrieving and redacting an estimated 1,680 pages would cost £2,450 — well above the £450 limit set by FOI regulations. He invited Mrs Oliver to narrow her request.

At the time the letter was written, the project was already carrying significant unresolved issues. Internal documents from the same period show officers had been instructed to limit the permanent school to 525 places despite higher pupil projections. Funding concerns were being noted. Drainage works were covered only by a provisional sum of £200,000, and within months the project risk register would rate the chance of Environment Agency requirements exceeding that sum as high.

The overall cost of the scheme later rose sharply. By March 2008 the Executive was noting a revised estimate of £9.94 million — a substantial increase on earlier figures — before the full extent of contamination on the former clay-pit and tip site was publicly acknowledged. After the school opened, Council officers and Reddish Police recorded serious traffic and road-safety problems at the Harcourt Street access.

Webb’s 2007 letter therefore sits at a pivotal moment. It offered a confident public defence of the chosen site while simultaneously limiting access to the internal discussions that would have shown how capacity, cost and ground-condition risks were being handled. The cost-limit refusal was lawful under the Freedom of Information Act, but its practical effect was to keep contemporaneous Project Board and other minutes out of public view during a critical phase of decision-making.

Fifteen years on, the school is open and serving the area. The contemporaneous papers, however, continue to raise questions about how thoroughly the accumulating difficulties were examined — and how much of that examination was visible to the residents most affected by the project.

1st September 2026

Newly examined internal documents from late 2005 and early 2006 lay bare how initial cost estimates for the North Reddish primary school and children’s centre scheme were incomplete, the planned building grew substantially in size, and a multi-million-pound budget was locked in before full site investigations were complete.

The notes, headed “North Reddish Project,” record a sequence of decisions that later proved costly. On 21 January 2005 a request was made for a square-metre rate for a single-storey building, including extra foundations, based on a floor area of 2,600 m². The rate was drawn from a comparable scheme at Brindale and updated for 2006, with no addition for Part L energy regulations.

Five days later an email from Andy MacKenzie to Julie Moran set out figures that deliberately excluded all external works, football pitches, tennis courts, drainage, highway improvements, environmental measures, design fees and land purchase. Those omissions were only brought back into the calculations in a first full estimate dated 12 December 2005. By then the floor area had risen to 3,443 m² — an increase of 843 m², or roughly one-third.

A Children’s Centre Sub-Group meeting on 5 December 2005 was held to settle the scheme details. The Project Initiation Document and brief were finalised by 30 December 2005, with the budget fixed under item 2.3.4 at £5,736,649. Subsequent cost lines listed in the notes included an increase for landscaping (£236,995, marked with a question mark), additional Part L regulations (£100,000), foundations (£382,200, also queried), electric and telephone connections (£20,000) and a sewer connection (£10,000).

At the same time the council commissioned key technical work: Faber Munsell to begin traffic studies in January/February 2006 with a report due in April; a topographical survey in December 2005; and ground investigation starting in January 2006 that included six months of gas monitoring. An initial brief had already been received before the formal PID.

These early papers sit against a well-documented backdrop. The scheme aimed to replace North Reddish infant and junior schools and Fir Tree primary with a new 600-pupil school, nursery and children’s centre on the Harcourt Street playing field — a former clay extraction pit later used as a tip. A £2.2 million government grant had been awarded in 2004. Local residents and then-MP Andrew Gwynne raised repeated concerns that the site’s industrial history had not been properly acknowledged. Initial soil tests found no contamination, but further investigations in 2006 and 2009 identified elevated levels of lead, arsenic and asbestos, with some readings reported at up to eight times safe limits. Remediation and protective measures became necessary, and by 2013 public reports put the projected final bill at £8.6 million amid lengthy delays.

The internal chronology shows how the project’s cost base expanded while significant site risks were still being quantified. Whether the early omissions and the decision to fix the budget before the ground investigation results were fully known contributed to the later overruns remains a matter of record for those who managed the scheme. What the notes make plain is that the warning signs of rising costs and incomplete scope were already visible by the end of 2005.

31st August 2026

A long-running dispute over the cost and capacity of a Stockport primary school has raised fresh questions about the council’s scrutiny process — and why concerns about soaring costs were dismissed as “vexatious”.

Questions are being raised over the effectiveness of Stockport Council’s scrutiny arrangements after recommendations concerning the controversial Vale View Primary School project were allegedly ignored.

The school, built in Reddish North, was originally expected to cost around £5.5 million. Project documentation subsequently showed the estimated cost rising to approximately £9.9 million.

Now, more than a decade later, the controversy has returned to the spotlight, with claims that concerns raised about the escalating costs were not properly addressed and that the person pursuing them was quickly described by the council as “vexatious”.

The dispute raises a fundamental question about local democracy:

If a council’s scrutiny committee makes recommendations, what happens when those recommendations are not acted upon?

From £5.5m to almost £10m

The financial figures are at the heart of the controversy.

Contemporary council documentation reportedly recorded the project moving from an estimated cost of around £5.5m to £9.9m.

That is an increase of roughly 80 per cent.

The increase is particularly striking because, according to the material published alongside the allegations, the movement from the lower to the higher figure appears within just two pages of a project report.

The person raising the concerns argues that the rapid increase should have prompted much closer monitoring of the project.

Instead, she says, when she questioned the figures she was branded “vexatious”.

A letter dated 5 October 2012, from Stockport Council’s then Head of Legal Services, Barry Khan, reportedly described her continuing pursuit of the matter in those terms.

The allegation that this amounted to an attempt to shut down legitimate scrutiny is strongly contested territory.

Calling someone “vexatious” does not establish that a council was attempting to conceal wrongdoing. Nor does a rapidly rising construction estimate, by itself, establish corruption.

But it does raise an important question:

Were the concerns properly investigated before the label was applied?

A school that was never big enough?

The financial questions are accompanied by a second concern: whether the new school was appropriately sized in the first place.

The investigation argues that Vale View was effectively undersized from the outset, with a permanent capacity of around 525 pupils, despite projections indicating demand could exceed that figure.

Temporary accommodation was therefore contemplated.

The school has subsequently become the subject of further questions about capacity and the apparent need to bring back into use an older school building nearby.

That raises an uncomfortable issue about the original decision-making.

If the council knew that demand could exceed the capacity of the proposed new building, why was a larger permanent school not considered?

And if three existing schools were already available, why was the alternative of renovating and upgrading those buildings not pursued instead?

Those questions go beyond the eventual construction bill.

They concern whether the fundamental investment decision represented good value in the first place.

What was the scrutiny committee for?

Perhaps the most serious allegation concerns the council’s scrutiny process.

Scrutiny committees exist precisely because councils need mechanisms through which major decisions can be examined, challenged and reviewed.

They are intended to provide a degree of democratic accountability beyond the executive decision-making process.

If recommendations made by a scrutiny committee were subsequently ignored, the public is entitled to ask why.

What did the committee recommend?

Who was responsible for responding?

Were the recommendations formally accepted or rejected?

If they were rejected, what reasons were given?

And was there any mechanism for ensuring that the committee’s concerns were not simply left on a shelf?

A scrutiny committee without an effective response mechanism risks becoming little more than a talking shop.

That is the broader democratic issue raised by the Vale View affair.

The question of “vexatious”

The most troubling element of the story, for critics of the council, is the treatment of the person who continued asking questions.

In October 2012, Barry Khan, then Head of Legal Services, reportedly wrote to her again describing her pursuit of the issue as “vexatious”.

The criticism is particularly striking given that the questions concerned public expenditure on a major council-funded construction project.

Citizens asking how millions of pounds of public money were spent should not automatically be regarded as troublesome simply because they continue asking questions.

On the other hand, councils do have legitimate grounds for managing persistent or repetitive correspondence where requests become unreasonable or disproportionate.

The crucial issue is therefore not simply whether the word “vexatious” was used.

It is whether the designation was reasonable, proportionate and properly supported by the circumstances.

Corruption or incompetence?

That leaves perhaps the most provocative question surrounding the project.

Was something more serious going on?

The accusation of corruption is a serious one and cannot responsibly be made without evidence.

But the alternative explanation — serious incompetence — is hardly reassuring if public money is involved.

A project which rises from £5.5m to almost £10m requires explanation.

A school which may not have been large enough to meet projected demand requires explanation.

A decision to build a new school rather than renovate existing facilities requires explanation.

And a scrutiny process which allegedly produces recommendations that are subsequently ignored requires explanation.

None of those facts, individually, proves corruption.

Together, however, they demonstrate why the project deserves a transparent historical examination.

The money trail

There is another reason why the story has refused to disappear.

Earlier investigation has identified a £2.243m transfer of Targeted Capital Funding associated with the Reddish North scheme which was subsequently used on four other school projects.

The council has reportedly said the transfer was authorised under Department for Education and Skills arrangements.

Again, that does not demonstrate wrongdoing.

But it does reinforce the need for a complete financial reconstruction.

Where did the original funding come from?

Why was money transferred elsewhere?

How was the resulting funding gap closed?

Why did the project’s estimated cost rise so sharply?

How much was spent on contamination and remediation?

What did drainage ultimately cost?

What was the final outturn figure?

And who signed off the various increases?

Those are precisely the questions a properly documented public-sector project should be capable of answering.

The £10m question

There is a temptation in controversies like this to reduce everything to a single accusation.

But the more important story may be the cumulative failure to provide a clear public explanation.

The issue is not simply whether Vale View Primary School cost more than originally anticipated.

It is whether the council can demonstrate that:

• the original business case was sound;
• alternatives were properly considered;
• projected demand was accurately assessed;
• escalating costs were effectively controlled;
• additional funding was properly authorised;
• abnormal ground and drainage costs were properly accounted for;
• scrutiny recommendations were properly considered;
• and residents’ subsequent questions were dealt with fairly.

If the answer to all of those questions is yes, the council should be able to demonstrate it through the documentary record.

If some answers are no, the public deserves to know why.

Why this matters today

The Vale View controversy is now more than a decade old.

But the questions have not necessarily become less relevant.

Councils continue to spend millions of pounds on schools, roads, regeneration schemes and other capital projects.

The lesson from Vale View should therefore not simply be about one school in Reddish.

It should be about how local government monitors major projects, how it responds when costs rise dramatically, and whether ordinary residents can challenge decisions without being dismissed.

Scrutiny is supposed to provide the checks and balances.

Freedom of Information is supposed to provide transparency.

And elected representatives are supposed to provide democratic accountability.

If recommendations can simply be ignored and persistent questioning can result in a resident being labelled “vexatious”, then the public is entitled to ask what those safeguards are actually worth.

The allegations surrounding Vale View do not, on the evidence currently available, prove corruption.

But they do establish a case for asking difficult questions.

And perhaps the most important one is the simplest:

If a scrutiny committee cannot ensure that its recommendations are properly considered, why have a scrutiny committee at all?

31st August 2026

Vale View Primary School was hailed as a major investment in Reddish North. But documents uncovered during a long-running investigation raise questions over soaring costs, diverted funding, contaminated land, drainage problems and the loss of public open space.

It was supposed to be a major investment in the future of Reddish North.

Instead, the story of Vale View Primary School has become a trail of rising costs, changing funding arrangements and unanswered questions.

The new school, built on the former Harcourt Street site, was initially expected to cost around £5.5 million.

Within a few years, the projected bill had risen to almost £10 million.

And documents now emerging from a long-running investigation raise questions about how that increase happened, where the money came from and whether the problems encountered during the project were properly anticipated.

There is no evidence from the documents considered so far that the council acted improperly.

But there is enough evidence to ask some uncomfortable questions.

From £5.5m to £9.94m

The financial story is difficult to ignore.

The original project estimate was around £5.5m. Subsequent estimates rose to approximately £7.5m and then £8.2m.

By 2007, the projected cost was around £8.5m.

By 2008, project documentation recorded a projected cost of £9.94m.

That represents an increase of roughly 81 per cent on the original £5.5m figure.

Later references have put the eventual cost at around £11m, although establishing the precise final outturn remains one of the key questions still outstanding.

Of course, construction projects change. Prices rise. Specifications evolve. Unexpected problems are discovered.

And Vale View was not being built on an ordinary greenfield site.

But that makes the detail of the expenditure more important, not less.

How much of the increase was inflation?

How much resulted from changes to the design?

How much was caused by contamination?

How much went on drainage, professional fees, land and other costs?

And what was the final bill?

Those questions can only really be answered by a complete project cost reconciliation.

The £2.4m hole

Perhaps the most revealing document comes from 2006.

A project Highlight Report reportedly showed the scheme with projected expenditure of £8.2m, but only £5.8m of available funding.

There was therefore a funding gap of £2.4m.

Two years later, that gap had disappeared.

But it had not disappeared because the projected cost had fallen.

The 2008 figures reportedly showed available funding of £9.94m, matching the projected expenditure.

That means the funding position had increased by more than £4m while the estimated cost had also risen.

Where did that additional funding come from?

And what approvals were required?

Those are questions about public accounting rather than accusations of wrongdoing. But they deserve clear answers.

£2.2m moved elsewhere

There is another striking part of the financial trail.

An FOI response cited during the investigation states that £2.243m of Targeted Capital Funding associated with the Reddish North scheme was used on four other projects.

More than £1m went to Brindale PRU.

A further £662,000 went to Dial Park Primary, £321,000 to Bradshaw Hall Primary and £240,000 to Woodley Primary.

The total was £2.243m.

The council reportedly explained that the transfer was permitted by a Department for Education and Skills letter dated December 2004.

If that is correct, the transfer itself may have been entirely authorised.

But another question immediately follows:

If £2.243m originally associated with Reddish North was spent elsewhere, how was the increasingly expensive Vale View project subsequently funded?

The answer should be visible in the capital programme and final accounts.

That is why obtaining the underlying departmental approval and following the money through the subsequent accounts is so important.

The site nobody could pretend was straightforward

There is a strong argument that the school became more expensive because the site itself presented significant problems.

The Harcourt Street land had an industrial history.

Investigations identified contaminants including arsenic, lead and asbestos.

The remediation strategy involved clean cover, localised asbestos removal and protection against ground gases.

Contaminated land can be extremely expensive to deal with, and contemporary project documents apparently recognised that the final extent of remediation work was uncertain.

That may provide a perfectly legitimate explanation for some of the additional expenditure.

But it also creates an obvious test for the project’s finances.

If the original £5.5m estimate assumed relatively normal construction conditions, the final accounts should make it possible to identify precisely how much was subsequently spent dealing with abnormal ground conditions.

Without that breakdown, the public is left comparing two headline figures without knowing what lies between them.

A £200,000 drainage warning

Then there was drainage.

Before construction, project documentation reportedly identified a high risk that Environment Agency requirements could push drainage costs beyond a provisional allowance of £200,000.

After the school opened, problems were reported with standing water and drainage around the site, including concerns relating to nearby Jackson’s Pond.

That creates another potentially important before-and-after story.

A risk was identified.

Money was provisionally allowed for it.

Problems were subsequently reported.

So what happened?

Was the eventual drainage system different from that originally envisaged?

How much did it cost?

Were additional works required?

And did the completed system resolve the problems?

These are not allegations. They are questions which should be answerable from the project’s records.

What happened to the playing fields?

The financial story is only part of the investigation.

The development also changed the nature of the land itself.

The former site provided a significant area of open recreational space. Attention has now been drawn to a 1982 Section 52 agreement, apparently requiring around seven acres of recreational open space.

The new development introduced the school buildings, playgrounds, hardstanding and fenced sports facilities.

The question is whether the public lost open recreational land and, if so, whether the replacement arrangements provided an equivalent benefit.

That is particularly relevant because the planning process also involved commitments relating to sports provision and community access.

The Sport England question

Sport England’s involvement provides another piece of the puzzle.

The investigation has identified commitments made in connection with the development which were intended to address concerns about sports provision.

The question now being pursued is whether those commitments were fully delivered and whether the facilities subsequently provided the community access that had been envisaged.

That may sound like a technical planning matter.

It isn’t.

When public recreational land is lost to development, the promises made to secure planning approval matter.

So does what happens to those promises years later.

A school too small for the children who needed it?

There are also questions about capacity.

Contemporary projections reportedly suggested that demand could reach between 555 and 563 pupils.

Yet the permanent school was designed around a capacity of 525.

Temporary accommodation was proposed to deal with the difference.

That raises an uncomfortable question about whether the new building was adequately planned for the population it was intended to serve.

A school can be expensive to build.

It is more difficult to explain why a new school should require temporary accommodation if demand above its permanent capacity was already foreseeable.

And then there was the traffic

Residents also raised concerns about access and traffic, particularly around narrow Mill Lane.

After the school opened, traffic-management and road-safety problems reportedly emerged, with police concerns also recorded.

Again, the issue is not whether someone could have predicted every problem.

It is whether the risks identified during planning were properly assessed and whether the completed scheme delivered the safe and practical access that residents had been promised.

The missing document

Perhaps the most significant feature of the entire story is what is still missing.

There is no shortage of figures.

There are estimates.

There are project reports.

There are funding allocations.

There are risk registers.

There are FOI responses.

There are references to contamination, drainage, sports facilities and open space.

But what is still needed is the document that brings everything together:

the final, fully reconciled cost of Vale View Primary School.

That document should show how the project moved from its original estimate to its final cost.

It should identify approved variations.

It should separate construction inflation from changes in scope.

It should identify abnormal ground costs.

It should account for professional fees, land, drainage, remediation, contingencies and other expenditure.

And it should explain how the funding package changed as the estimated cost increased.

The bigger question

The story of Vale View Primary School is not necessarily a story of corruption or financial wrongdoing.

The evidence examined so far does not establish that.

It is, however, a story about public money and public decisions.

A project that began at around £5.5m ended up with a projected cost approaching £11m, while millions of pounds of capital funding moved between projects and significant risks emerged from the site’s contamination and drainage requirements.

The school was built.

Children attend it.

The investment undoubtedly delivered a new educational facility for the area.

But that does not mean the questions should disappear.

Public confidence depends not only on whether a project is completed, but on whether the public can subsequently understand what it cost, why it cost that much and whether the decisions made along the way represented good value.

For Vale View, the paper trail appears to contain many of the pieces.

The outstanding challenge is to put them all together.

And until the final numbers are reconciled, one question remains hanging over the project:

How did a £5.5m school become a £10m-plus project — and where, exactly, did all the money go?