Lambeth Council knew as early as August 2014 that Network Rail was planning to ‘regenerate’ Brixton Arches – despite Cllr Jack Hopkins claiming that the first he found out about the evictions was November 2014. Tenants were eventually told about the plans as late as February 2015.

A Freedom of Information Request submitted by Brixton Buzz shows how a redacted source at the Town Hall was exchanging emails with Network Rail about a pre-application site meeting on 27 August 2014.

Posting to his personal blog in February 2015, Cllr Hopkins, the Cabinet Member for Jobs and Growth claimed:

We are willing to give Jacko the benefit of the doubt here. It might simply be that the site visits for August didn’t mention the evictions; or it might even be that the redacted source at the Town Hall didn’t tell Cllr Hopkins about the plans back in August – a move that would show tremendous disrespect for a high ranking Cabinet member.

Either way, the Brixton Buzz FoI shows how a Cabinet member, Council officers and Network Rail worked closely together to try and manage the news agenda when the plans for the Brixton Arches evictions were finally made public in February 2015.

Brixton Buzz was first to break the news about the evictions. We reported on 4 February 2014 how Network Rail had told businesses trading in the arches along Atlantic Road and Brixton Station Road that they will be served notices by springtime 2015.

It now seems that a full five months passed between this information first being shared at the Town Hall, and then the tenants finally being told of their impending fate.

The following is the timeline of events that Brixton Buzz has been able to piece together from the data we have obtained from our FoI request:

1 September, 2014

An email from someone at Network Rail to a redacted person at Lambeth Council talks about an external agency being appointed to assist with the ‘engagement’ of tenants. The ‘engagement’ wouldn’t take place until five months later.

Changes in Brixton are mentioned. For some reasons changes in another location have been redacted. Herne Hill possibly?

3 September, 2014

A source at Lambeth Council talks about how the ‘political imperative’ for the evictions has been strengthened, following the Labour group’s win in the local elections. A ‘meaningful communication strategy’ is mentioned.

We assume that this mail isn’t from an apolitical Council officer, otherwise why would they be making claims about ‘political imperatives?’

Plus why does a Labour victory strengthen the cause to evict local traders? A LABOUR victory?

Cllr Jack Hopkins was also copied into this mail, dated 3 September, 2014. Jacko claims that the first he knew about the evictions was two months later.

2 October, 2014

A mail from the Town Hall to Network Rail states that it is not accurate that there will be no ‘activity’ for five years. The redacted Town Hall source states that it has not been made clear that action may be ‘imminent’.

7 October, 2014

Emails are exchanged between Network Rail and Lambeth Council about how best to sell the idea of the ‘refurbishment’ of Brixton Arches.

9 October, 2014

A document was exchanged between Network Rail and Lambeth Council. This shows that both organisations held a pre-planning meeting about the refurbishment of Brixton Arches on site on 27 August, 2014. It is worth stating once again that the first Cllr Jack Hopkins heard about the planned evictions was November 2014.

This document also shows how the Network Rail project will not be liable to pay the Community Infrastructure Levy – the payment expected from developers to compensate the local community as part of any development scheme.

20 October, 2014

This is just odd. An email is sent from the Town Hall to Network Rail linking to a Brixton Buzz simple photo story about some new street art that appeared along Brixton Station Road at the time.

Note the Cantona-esque quote.

If you take a meander down Brixton Station Road and Atlantic Road this evening, you will see both streets are alive with community street art, criticising Lambeth Council and Network Rail over their actions.

Twit, twoo.

At the risk of repeating ourselves: this email was sent in October 2014. Cllr Hopkins wasn’t aware of the evictions until the following month…

3 December, 2014

Speaking of Jacko – the Cabinet member for Jobs and Growth was keen to contain the ‘rebel rousers’ with a ‘filler’ story. We think that he means local businesses 🙁

6 January, 2015

With the Christmas break having finished, someone at Lambeth Council was getting slightly twitchy about exactly when Network Rail would inform local traders about the planned evictions. Communication between the two organisations had been ongoing since at least August 2014. Yet four months later, and the plans had so far been kept quiet.

15 January, 2015

Network Rail meanwhile was far more relaxed. It didn’t see the need to hold workshops or public meetings.

5 February, 2015

An email from a source at Network Rail to a redacted Town Hall account talks of ‘noisy’ blogs.

HONK!

Hiya 🙂

The joint media strategy by Lambeth Council and Network Rail to try and defend the evictions then starts to surface. Network Rail is obviously employing a communications genius. The way to handle TV interviews is… not to do them, so that the issue can be ‘shut down’.

Plus the classic ‘no comment’.

No comment, etc.

Policy is also discussed on 5 February. The issue here is of ‘first refusal’ for existing tenants to return to their location, once the regeneration has taken place. An email from Network Rail is strong in the line of ‘the arches are going to change.’ First refusal is ruled out because of the structural changes planned.

The source at Lambeth Council disagreed with this approach, going as far as to describe it as ‘weasel words.’ The view from the Town Hall appears to be one of divide and rule for the local Brixton businesses.

But don’t forget that Network Rail likes to look after its favourite local Council.

Finally it’s interesting to see that Lambeth Council is taking an active interest in the tweets of local resident Jay Rayner.

As predicted, etc.

The treatment of the local Brixton traders by Network Rail has been shoddy. This is nothing new – we knew this back in February 2015 when we first broke the story about the planned evictions.

What the Brixton Buzz FoI shows however is the role that Lambeth Council has taken in helping to manage this relationship.

We are being extremely generous to Jacko by going along with his claim that he first new about the planned evictions in November 2014, despite official correspondence between the Council – for which he serves as a senior Cabinet member – and Network Rail taking place two months earlier.

It is also worth pointing out that in order for our FoI to be answered, we had to limit the time period that we were interested in researching. We stated 1 September 2014 as the start date. It may well be that the Council was corroborating with Network Rail even before this date.

What is clear however is the very close relationship between the two organisations in the build up to Brixton Buzz breaking the news of the evictions, and also as part of the joint attempt to manage the news agenda.

Jacko and his Cabinet pals have taken the line all along that this is a ‘landlord and tenant issue.’ We’re not sure what type of landlord Jacko normally deals with. Maybe emails discussing how to manage the tenants is what is meant by the ‘Co-operative Council?’

We would expect a close relationship when it comes to planning matters. Developers seek advice from the Council before submitting major applications. But for Council officers to be advising Network Rail on a media strategy takes this relationship to another level.

Our FoI only related to Lambeth Council and Network Rail. We wonder who else Network Rail has been talking to since at least August of 2014 in relation to the evictions? Sadly private businesses can’t be covered under the scope of a Freedom of Information request.

The struggle to get this information out of Network Rail has been complex. It has taken almost ten months of being repeatedly turned down, and then appealing for the right to see this communication.

Brixton Buzz first submitted the following FoI back on 24 March 2015:

“Please can you supply me with copies of all correspondence between Network Rail and Lambeth Council. Please include emails as well as printed correspondence. The period that I am interested in is 1 September 2014 to 28 February 2015.”

We were told that the scope was too large, and we needed to narrow this down. We re-worded the FoI to focus on the area affected by the evictions.

The FoI was then refused as:

“It would be detrimental to Network Rail for the information to be disclosed on a voluntary basis.”

We then requested an internal review. Two delays followed, before we were told on the 11 June 2015 that the internal review concluded that our request relates to commercial activities, and so was exempt from a response. We took up the issue with the Information Commissioner.

Much to our surprise, Network Rail then voluntarily replied on 23 September 2015, stating that commercial activities could now be considered as part of an FoI request. Network Rail volunteered to complete the original request.

Two more delays followed, before our FoI was finally replied to on 18 January, 2016. We received 50 documents, all zipped down into a 10MB file. It has been quite exhausting sorting through the data. We have attached the complete set of files below. We would welcome any other observations in the comments.

The information we have received is not complete. Exemptions and redactions litter the documents. It does show however the value of persistence when trying to track down information about how Lambeth Council and commercial partners work together to try and bring about the change they want for Brixton.

We are still unsure where all of this leaves the Brixton Arches traders. They knew that they had a momentous battle fronting up to Network Rail. But to now find out that Lambeth Council has been playing a major role behind the scenes is possibly a final kick in the face for local businesses.

But then again it might just inspire them to fight back even harder.

FoI files:

Annex 1

Annex 2

Annex 3

Annex 4

Annex 5

Annex 6

Annex 7

Annex 8

Annex 9

Annex 10

Annex 11

Annex 12

Annex 13

Annex 14

Annex 15

Annex 16

Annex 17

Annex 18

Annex 19.

Annex 20.

Annex 21.

Annex 22.

Annex 23.

Annex 24.

Annex 25.

Annex 26.

Annex 27.

Annex 28.

Annex 29.

Annex 30.

Annex 31.

Annex 32.

Annex 33.

Annex 34.

Annex 35

Annex 36.

Annex 37.

Annex 38.

Annex 39.

Annex 40.

Annex 41.

Annex 42.

Annex 43.

Annex 44.

Annex 45.

Annex 46.

Annex 47.

Annex 48.

Annex 49.

Annex 50