FOI request (FOIR-734773910)

Garage Portfolio

Requested Mon 28 July 2025
Responded Fri 19 September 2025

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting information about garages owned or managed by your council. Please provide the following:

Primary Questions

1. Total number of garages currently owned or managed by the council.

2. Total number of garage blocks.

3. Number of garages currently tenanted.

4. Number of garages currently vacant.

5. Average monthly rental price for a garage.

6. Number of garages considered unlettable or in disrepair.

7. Whether garage management is handled internally or outsourced (if outsourced, please name the third party).

8. Estimated annual revenue lost due to vacant garages.

9. Average duration garages sit vacant before being re-let.

Secondary Questions (optional, if readily available)

10. Garage occupancy rates for the past 3 years.

11. Breakdown of void reasons (for example, disrepair, access issues, planning constraints).

12. Lettings policy or eligibility criteria for tenants (for example, can anyone rent them).

13. Number of people currently on a waiting list for garages (if one exists).

14. Software/system used to manage garage lettings.

15. Total rental income from garages in the last financial year.

16. Any plans to sell, redevelop, or repurpose parts of the garage portfolio in the next 3 years.

17. Number of people employed internally to manage the garages.

18. Average response time to an inbound garage enquiry.

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Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

Please note that these are located within a commercial site, not a residential site.

1. 2

2. 1

3. 2

4. 0

5. Refused - please see below.

6. 0

7. Internally

8. Nil

9. Information not held.

10. Information not held.

11. Not applicable.

12. Open market (anyone can apply to rent these garages which are located within a commercial site).

13. No waiting list held.

14. Not applicable.

15. Refused, please see below.

16. No

17. Not applicable.

18. Not applicable.

NOTICE OF REFUSAL

The information you have requested is commercially sensitive and falls under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act – Commercially Sensitive Information - Information prejudicing commercial interests – commercial interest relating to an organisations commercial activity and may include trading activity procurement and relationships with third parties.

The exemption afforded by Section 43 is subject to what is known as the ‘public interest test’. When applying the test in a particular case a public authority is deciding whether the public interest is better served by non-disclosure than by disclosure.

Although the Freedom of Information Act does not define ‘in the public interest’, there is a presumption under Freedom of Information that openness is in the public interest. In applying the public interest test a public authority will take into account the distinction that has been often made by courts between things that are in the public interest, and things that merely interest the public. Where applicants have not identified public interest considerations succinctly or accurately, the public authority has a responsibility under the Act to make their own assessment of the public interest considerations in the particular case.

We have identified the following public interest factors that may be seen as encouraging the disclosure of information:

a) accountability of public spending.

We consider these factors to be of limited relevance in relation to the information in question.

Public interest factors seen as encouraging non-disclosure are, generally, the exemptions themselves. In consideration of this matter we came to the following conclusions:

a) ensuring that companies are able to compete for business fairly.

b) damage to reputation and/or financial interests.

In weighing the factors for and against disclosure we have concluded that the likely benefit to the applicant and the wider public of disclosure is outweighed by the likely prejudice caused by such disclosure and that therefore the public interest is better served by non-disclosure.

For the reasons given above we will not be communicating to you the information you have requested.