AFC Telford documents release 'bunkum' says former councillor

Adrian Williams has criticised the hundreds of pages of documents released by the council as “rubbish” and has criticised the council’s decision to appeal against a ruling by the Information Commission.

It stated several reasons for the refusal including health and safety, commercial sensitivity and that information was provided in confidence, according to a report from the information commissioner.

The documents were requested by the former councillor who claimed the documents he was sent under the FOI request were mostly blacked out.

A complaint was made by Mr Williams to the Information Commissioner about how the FOI request had been handled and a decision notice, upholding the complaint, was issued at the start of April.

Hundreds of pages of documents, including email conversations were released on Friday.

But Mr Williams says many of the documents are still “blacked out” and do not provide the information he requested.

Mr Williams said he wanted to see the correspondence as he has concerns about safety measures at the club and about public money given to it by the council. He first made the enquiry more than a year ago.

He said: “This is years down the line and they are saying that some of the evidence is commercially sensitive. I say that is a load of bunkum.

“The stuff I have received is a load of rubbish. It is still heavily redacted.”

Mr Williams has also been sent a letter by the council saying it plans to appeal against the information commissioner’s ruling.

The club said it welcomed the release of the information as it would end speculation. It spoke of the agreement it made to use some funds from the sale of the Bucks Head pub to help the club and said all arrangements were transparent and proper.

In a statement it also said any talk of it taking legal action against the council was completely false.

It added: “Regarding the £279,000 monies arising from the sale of the Bucks Head pub, it is already in the public domain that £45,000 of this was provided to AFC Telford United to carry out safety work on our public address and fire alarm system, to rectify issues identified by both ourselves and council safety officials.

“There is a full set of documents between the council, AFC Telford United and the firm that undertook this work that demonstrates that the £45,000 was wholly used for this purpose and indeed AFC Telford have incurred further costs beyond the £45,000 to obtain the necessary safety certification and because AFC Telford takes safety of its spectators very seriously.

“The £45,000 has been referred to in the press as a ‘loan’. To be precise the word ‘loan’ does not appear in the signed council/AFC Telford agreement on this, although AFC Telford United is obligated to supply the council with £2.5k of value per annum in exchange and if there is in any shortfall in this value, then the balance of the £2.5k per annum is payable in cash.”