{ "schema": "ghf-wdtk-thread/1", "id": "WB-0401", "ev": "EV-0601", "wiki": "https://greathousefarmwiki.wordpress.com/evidence/ev-0601-whatdotheyknow-vale-of-glamorgan-council-2020-01590-hyb/", "slug": "2020_01590_hyb", "title": "2020 01590 HYB", "authority": "Vale of Glamorgan Council", "url": "https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2020_01590_hyb", "wdtk_status": "Long overdue", "status": "long overdue", "references": [ "Planning application 2020/01590/HYB" ], "sent": "2026-08-21", "last_message": "2026-10-02", "outcome": "No substantive response. One reply (28 September 2026, working day 25) asked for a Council reference.", "deadlines": [ { "label": "Response (20 working days)", "from_": "2026-08-21", "due": "2026-09-21", "answered": null, "result": "missed (no reply)" }, { "label": "Internal review (20 working days)", "from_": "2026-09-22", "due": "2026-10-20", "answered": null, "result": "missed (no reply)" } ], "counts": { "messages": 4, "sent": 3, "received": 1, "attachments": 0 }, "messages": [ { "n": 1, "wdtk_anchor": "outgoing-2133469", "direction": "sent", "date": "2026-08-21T07:08:06+01:00", "from": "Requester", "summary": "Request for the Council's records on planning application 2020/01590/HYB (Land South of Llandough Hill and Penarth Road): the ownership certificate, statutory notices, who was served, and ownership documents supplied by the applicant, with notice of an ownership concern.", "response_class": "request", "body": "Vale of Glamorgan Council,\nI note you failed to respond to my FOI last week via email. By the date you provided me stating I could expect a reply. I will therfore proceed on public record for this next FOI: Freedom of Information Act 2000 Request and Formal Notification of Ownership Concern.\nI am writing to request recorded information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 concerning the following planning application:\nApplication reference: 2020/01590/HYB\nSite: Land South of Llandough Hill and Penarth Road, Llandough\nPlease provide electronic copies, preferably in PDF format, of the following information and documents held by the Council in relation to this application:\n1. The completed Ownership Certificate submitted with the application, including whether Certificate A, B, C or D was certified.\n2. Any Notice 1, Notice 2 or equivalent statutory notice served in connection with the ownership certificate, including copies of the notices themselves.\n3. Any evidence, certificate, declaration, schedule, list or record held by the Council identifying the persons or bodies upon whom notices were served, including the names and addresses of owners or agricultural tenants identified for the purposes of the application, subject to any lawful redaction required under the Act.\n4. Any documents submitted by the applicant relating to ownership, title, control or interests in the application land, including title plans, title numbers, conveyances, ownership statements or declarations.\n5. Any correspondence or internal records concerning a discrepancy, uncertainty, challenge or query regarding ownership of the application site or the identity of persons entitled to be notified.\n6. Any documents identifying the basis upon which the Council accepted the ownership certificate as valid for the purposes of determining application 2020/01590/HYB.\nI have checked the Council's online planning register, but these documents do not currently appear to be available for download:\n\"Planning application 2020/01590/HYB\" (\nhttps://reference-url-citation.invalid/0\n)\nIf any requested information is already publicly available elsewhere, please identify the precise document and provide the relevant location or reference.\nIf you consider that any part of this request is exempt from disclosure, please provide the remainder and identify the specific statutory exemption relied upon in respect of each withheld item.\n---\nFormal notification of ownership concern\nSeparately from, and without limiting, my FOI request, I wish formally to notify the Vale of Glamorgan Council and its Planning Department of a serious and unresolved concern regarding the chain of title and ownership of land within, adjoining or potentially overlapping the red-line boundary of application 2020/01590/HYB.\nI am investigating whether land historically associated with my family's property, Great House Farm (Ty Mawr), Llandough, may fall within or overlap the application site and whether my family may retain an unresolved proprietary interest in that land.\nI am not asking the Council, through this FOI request, to determine ownership or adjudicate my family's title. Rather, I am placing the Council on notice that the identity of the true owners of land within the application boundary may be disputed and requires careful consideration.\nMy concern arises from, among other matters:\n- my family's documented long-standing occupation and claim to Great House Farm;\n- the formal evidence of my grandmother, Mary Williams (formerly Buckler), concerning the historical extent and ownership arrangements of the farm;\n- her account that family title papers and an agreement relating to the future passing of the freehold disappeared from the farmhouse after being removed without her authority;\n- the family's continuing assertion of ownership despite competing claims;\n- the fact that possession proceedings concerning occupation of the property did not, to my knowledge, amount to a final judicial adjudication extinguishing every possible underlying proprietary claim asserted by the family; and\n- the need to establish whether all persons who should have been notified as owners or persons with relevant interests were correctly identified when this application was submitted.\nIn her formal statement, Mary Williams stated:\n«“I was born at Great House Farm in 1913 and have lived there all my life. My family have lived and farmed at Great House Farm since 1667.”»\nShe further described an arrangement concerning quarrying under which:\n«“when the quarrying ceased the freehold should belong to my grandfather.”»\nShe also stated that the relevant agreement and other family papers were kept at the farmhouse until they disappeared. According to her evidence, she later learned that papers from the family blanket box, including the agreement relating to the farm, had been removed and handed to another person without her knowledge or consent.\nMary Williams subsequently and consistently maintained that the family's ownership claim had not simply disappeared. The existence of competing possession claims or later registrations does not, by itself, answer the historical question I am now investigating: whether all relevant interests were properly identified and whether the land included within the 2020 application boundary was owned by the person or persons stated in the application.\nI am therefore specifically concerned to establish:\n1. Who certified ownership of the land within the red-line boundary in 2020;\n2. What title or ownership information was relied upon;\n3. Which persons were identified as owners or parties entitled to notice;\n4. Whether any notice was served on my family or their known successors; and\n5. Whether the Council holds any record of an ownership dispute, competing interest or uncertainty relating to the land.\nPlease ensure that this correspondence is retained with the records relating to application 2020/01590/HYB as formal notification that a historical ownership issue has been raised.\nFor the avoidance of doubt, this notification is made without prejudice to any rights, claims or remedies that I or other members of my family may have. Nothing in this request should be interpreted as an admission that any competing party has validly acquired or extinguished any interest historically claimed by my family.\nPlease provide the requested information electronically within the statutory time limit of 20 working days.\nYours faithfully,\nSion Buckler\nRetired Sergeant, Royal Signals\nCyber and Electronic Warfare Professional\nWilliams/Buckler Family Estate", "body_public": null, "wdtk_url": "https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2020_01590_hyb#outgoing-2133469", "attachments": [] }, { "n": 2, "wdtk_anchor": "outgoing-2153042", "direction": "sent", "date": "2026-09-22T20:31:11+01:00", "from": "Requester", "summary": "No response by the 20th working day (21 September 2026). Chaser and formal internal review request.", "response_class": "internal review request", "body": "Vale of Glamorgan Council,\nRequest: 2020 01590 HYB — information held in relation to planning application 2020/01590/HYB, Land South of Llandough Hill and Penarth Road, Llandough.\nThis request was delivered on Friday 21 August 2026. The first working day was Monday 24 August 2026. Excluding the bank holiday on Monday 31 August 2026, the twentieth working day fell on Monday 21 September 2026. That period has now expired. I have received no substantive response, no acknowledgement, and no notice of any extension, and nothing appears on this thread.\nI am doing two things in this message.\nFirst, I ask the Council to provide a substantive response to the request.\nSecond, I am formally requesting an internal review of the Council's failure to comply with the statutory response deadline.\nApplicable regime\nI consider the requested information to fall within regulation 2(1) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, particularly information concerning land and measures affecting land. Please confirm the regime under which the Council is handling this request. If the Council takes the view that any part falls under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 instead, please identify which part and on what basis.\nWhat is outstanding\nThe six numbered items in my request of 21 August 2026 remain outstanding in full. I am not broadening them:\n1. The completed ownership certificate submitted with application 2020/01590/HYB, including which of certificates A, B, C or D was certified.\n2. Any Notice 1, Notice 2 or equivalent statutory notice served in connection with that certificate, including copies of the notices.\n3. Any evidence, certificate, declaration, schedule, list or record identifying the persons or bodies upon whom notices were served, subject to any lawful redaction.\n4. Any documents submitted by the applicant relating to ownership, title, control or interests in the application land, including title plans, title numbers, conveyances, ownership statements or declarations.\n5. Any correspondence or internal record concerning a discrepancy, uncertainty, challenge or query regarding ownership of the application site or the identity of persons entitled to be notified.\n6. Any documents identifying the basis upon which the Council accepted the ownership certificate as valid for the purposes of determining the application.\nNone of these appeared on the Council's online planning register when I checked.\nIf the Council considers any item exempt, please disclose the remainder and identify the specific exemption or exception relied upon for that item, with reasons, and where a public interest test applies, the considerations on each side. If any item is not held, please confirm that for the item specifically rather than answering the request as a whole.\nFor the avoidance of doubt, I am asking only what was submitted, held, checked, recorded and relied upon by the Council. I am not asking the Council to determine or adjudicate ownership of any land.\nPublic interest\nThe application land adjoins the site of Great House Farm (Tŷ Mawr), Llandough, which my family occupied until its demolition in 1988, and the request concerns the ownership certification and statutory notifications relied upon in planning application 2020/01590/HYB.\nWhy this correspondence is public\nI am keeping this correspondence public so that the request, the Council's responses, any delays and subsequent disclosures form a continuous and independently visible record.\nDocumented pattern relevant to the internal review\nThe following are not new requests and I am not asking for them to be answered on this thread. They are the Council's own dated statements in other cases, and I ask that the reviewer take them into account in considering whether the failure here is an isolated lapse or part of a documented pattern of delay and incomplete searching.\n1. Case 00210772. On 28 May 2026 the Council wrote that \"the statutory response deadline is paused while we await your clarification\". The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 contain no provision suspending the twenty working day period, and the Council itself determined on 7 July 2026 that the request fell to be handled under those Regulations.\n2. Case 00210772. On 7 July 2026 the Council responded that \"following searches of Planning records, no additional information has been identified within the scope of your request\". On 11 September 2026 the same team wrote that \"further historical documentation has been found\" and that it was \"still sifting through it\". The Council stated that the material \"is not necessarily Council documentation but is nonetheless in the Council's possession\", and that it would need to consider whether to \"consult with 3rd parties\" and if necessary do so. This indicates that the July position was reached before the searches that subsequently located this material had been completed. In the same letter the Council said it intended to update me further \"by the end of next week\", which was Friday 18 September 2026. No update was sent.\n3. Case 00210772. I requested an internal review on 7 July 2026 and it was acknowledged on 10 July 2026. Forty working days expired on 2 September 2026. Fifty-four working days have now passed without a decision. In that period the Council set itself three update dates and met none of them: 14 August 2026, promised in its letter of 5 August 2026; 24 August 2026; and 18 September 2026. No explanation was given for any of them.\nPossible third-party consultation does not stop the clock under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. An extension under regulation 7 requires the Council to notify the applicant of the extension as soon as possible and no later than 20 working days after receipt. No such notice was given on case 00210772 or on the present request.\n4. Case 00211027. Made on 13 July 2026 and answered on 14 September 2026, forty-four working days against a statutory twenty. A question I asked on 14 July 2026 went unanswered until that response, the Council having acknowledged on 3 August 2026 that it had not replied to it.\nI record that where the Council has answered, it has on occasion answered well. The response of 14 September 2026 disclosed a 1965 conveyance in full, and the Planning service identified the relevant application references promptly in June 2026. The difficulty is not unwillingness in every instance. It is that statutory periods and the Council's own stated commitments are being treated as indicative.\nWhat I ask\n1. A substantive response to the request by Tuesday 6 October 2026, being ten working days from the date of this message. If the Council cannot meet that date, please state the date by which it will respond and the reason for the delay.\n2. Confirmation of receipt of this follow-up.\n3. The reference under which the internal review will be conducted, the team responsible for it, and its target completion date.\n4. Confirmation of the regime under which this request is being handled.\nThe statutory period has already expired, so I am not extending it further. If a substantive response and confirmation of the internal review are not received by 6 October 2026, I will refer the matter to the Information Commissioner under the applicable FOIA/EIR enforcement provisions, relying on this thread as the record.\nI request that all substantive correspondence concerning this request be posted on this thread rather than sent privately by email or telephone, so that the record remains complete and publically visible.\nRegards,\nSion Buckler (Ret'd Sergeant)\nRoyal Signals Cyber/Electronic Warfare Professional and Life Member", "body_public": null, "wdtk_url": "https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2020_01590_hyb#outgoing-2153042", "attachments": [] }, { "n": 3, "wdtk_anchor": "incoming-3571218", "direction": "received", "date": "2026-09-28T09:50:10+01:00", "from": "Vale of Glamorgan Council", "summary": "First reply from the Council, on working day 25: asks for the Council's own reference (prefix 002) before it will look into the delay.", "response_class": "clarification demand", "body": "Dear Mr Buckler\nYou have placed a number of requests with us. With regard to below we will investigate and consider your concerns regarding delay but can you please provide our reference. Our references currently start with a pre fix of 002\nRegards\nInformation Governance Officer/ / Swyddog Llywodraethu Gwybodaeth\nLegal & Democratic Services /Gwasanaethau Cyfreithol a Democrataidd\nVale of Glamorgan Council / Cyngor Bro Morgannwg\ne-mail / e-bost: [email address]/[email address]\nConsider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.\nYstyriwch yr amgylchedd. Peidiwch ag argraffu'r neges hon oni bai fod gwir angen.\nVisit our Website at\nhttp://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/\nEwch i'n gwefan yn\nhttp://www.bromorgannwg.gov.uk/\nFind us on Facebook / Cewch ddod o hyd i ni ar Facebook\nFollow us on Twitter / Dilynwch ni ar Twitter\nCorrespondence is welcomed in Welsh or English / Croesewir Gohebiaeth yn y Gymraeg neu yn Saesneg.", "body_public": "Dear [requester]\nYou have placed a number of requests with us. With regard to below we will investigate and consider your concerns regarding delay but can you please provide our reference. Our references currently start with a pre fix of 002\nRegards\nInformation Governance Officer/ / Swyddog Llywodraethu Gwybodaeth\nLegal & Democratic Services /Gwasanaethau Cyfreithol a Democrataidd\nVale of Glamorgan Council / Cyngor Bro Morgannwg\ne-mail / e-bost: [email address]/[email address]\nConsider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.\nYstyriwch yr amgylchedd. Peidiwch ag argraffu'r neges hon oni bai fod gwir angen.\nVisit our Website at\nhttp://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/\nEwch i'n gwefan yn\nhttp://www.bromorgannwg.gov.uk/\nFind us on Facebook / Cewch ddod o hyd i ni ar Facebook\nFollow us on Twitter / Dilynwch ni ar Twitter\nCorrespondence is welcomed in Welsh or English / Croesewir Gohebiaeth yn y Gymraeg neu yn Saesneg.", "wdtk_url": "https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2020_01590_hyb#incoming-3571218", "attachments": [] }, { "n": 4, "wdtk_anchor": "outgoing-2161063", "direction": "sent", "date": "2026-10-02T18:32:23+01:00", "from": "Requester", "summary": "Reply: the request was made on this public thread, no reference was ever issued, and the thread itself identifies the request.", "response_class": "follow-up", "body": "Information Governance Officer,\nThank you for your message of 28 September 2026.\nThis request was submitted on this WhatDoTheyKnow thread on Friday 21 August 2026. My follow-up, including a formal request for internal review, was posted here on 22 September 2026.\nYour message of 28 September was the Council’s first communication on this request. It arrived on working day 25, after the 20 working day limit had expired on 21 September. No acknowledgement, reference or extension notice was ever issued. That is why no 002 reference exists. The absence of a reference reflects the Council’s failure to log the request, not any omission on my part.\nThe request is also easy to locate. You replied on this thread, directly beneath the full request text, and through an email address unique to this request. By contrast, my emailed request of 28 September was acknowledged as 00211557 within two days.\nFor the avoidance of doubt, this request is:\nWhatDoTheyKnow title: 2020 01590 HYB\nPlanning application: 2020/01590/HYB\nSite: Land South of Llandough Hill and Penarth Road, Llandough\nContent: the six numbered items concerning the ownership certificate (A/B/C/D), any Notice 1 or Notice 2, lists of persons notified, title documents submitted by the applicant, internal records of ownership queries, and the basis on which the certificate was accepted as valid.\nIt is none of the six cases the Council has referenced to me so far: 00210772, 00211027, 00211463, 00211483 (planning 89/01396/OUT), 00211484 and 00211557. Please do not merge it with any of them, particularly 00211483. Treat this request as freestanding.\nYour message of 28 September said only that the Council would “investigate and consider” my concerns about delay. My message of 22 September was a formal request for internal review, and I ask that it be logged as one.\nPlease:\nLog this request, allocate a 002 reference, and state its date of receipt as 21 August 2026.\nConfirm the regime (FOIA or EIR).\nConfirm that the internal review has been logged, the team responsible, and the target completion date.\nProvide a substantive response to the six outstanding items, or a clear statement for each item of what is held, not held or exempt, with reasons.\nI asked for a substantive response by Tuesday 6 October 2026. If you cannot meet that date, state the revised date and the specific reason. If neither a response nor confirmation of the internal review is received by then, I will refer the matter to the Information Commissioner, relying on this thread as the record.\nAll substantive correspondence on this request should continue to be posted on this public thread.\nRegards,\nSion Buckler (Ret’d Sergeant)\nRoyal Signals Cyber/ Electronic Warfare Professional and Life Member", "body_public": null, "wdtk_url": "https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/2020_01590_hyb#outgoing-2161063", "attachments": [] } ], "archived": "2026-10-21", "statement": "", "site": "https://whatdotheyknow.bucklerfamily.estate/r/2020_01590_hyb/", "thread_json": "https://wayback.bucklerfamily.estate/text/evidence/wdtk/2026-08-21_wdtk-vale_2020-01590-hyb.json" }