Government Office for the East Midlands: Secrets and Lies about the Nottinghamshire Minerals Plan

The Government Office for the East Midlands (GOEM) acts locally on behalf of central government. Last November, BJRA, Bulcote Conservation Trust, Gunthorpe Environmental and Flood Alleviation Group, BJ and Bulcote Parish Councils, our local Borough Councillors and our local MPs Paddy Tipping and Vernon Coaker all asked the Secretary of State (via GOEM) to call in the Minerals Plan, or delete policy M6.6, the Gunthorpe Allocation. (See Notts Minerals Plan section on thissite)

The requestwas rejected.

As we were not satisfied that GOEM had treated our request seriously, in July we asked for copies of all correspondence and communications between GOEM and the Secretary of State under a Freedom of Information request. In August we received a reply from the Head of Infrastructure, stating that there had been no communication of any sort between GOEM and the Secretary of State. Having reason to question this response, we wrote again repeating the request and eventually received a reply in September from the Director of Children and Learning, admitting that there had been communication but stating that it had been decided that it was not in the public interest to permit access to it.

We have now written to the Director of GOEM drawing her attention to the discrepancies in these responses, asking what the Director of Children and Learning has got to do with it, and repeating our request for the information originally requested in July.