A group of residents has indeed been asking questions. In February 2020 under a Freedom of Information request they submitted a request to Luton Borough Council (LBC) to see the business case for the Dart (as it was being solely funded by them) and how it fitted into the H.M. Treasury Five-Case Business Model for Public Authority Funded Projects. They also asked if they could be supplied with a timeline for when the residents of Luton could see a positive financial benefit for the then £225 million investment.
In June 2020 they got the reply that the documentation included commercial information that could not be shared with the residents of Luton stating the project continued to be commercially sensitive and would not be released under Section (43) of the Freedom of Information Act.
The residents took the view that as the project was well advanced there should be no reason for further secrecy and asked the Council to reconsider, as it would now have no effect whatsoever on the commercial aspects of LLAL who were not the airport operator. One week later the request was turned down again.
They then decided to refer the request to the Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO), for clarity that the information did fall under Section (43). They made their submission in August 2020. The ICO agreed to correspond with LBC on the subject as they felt the residents had a case.
In January this year that the Council informed the ICO that they were maintaining their position on withholding the information, but would supply a redacted version of the information they requested. The document LBC provided was 70% redacted and contained no information that the Five-Case Business Model had been met.
The residents informed the ICO that this reply was not acceptable as the original request had not been answered. The ICO agreed that the information supplied did not cover the rationale/ justification in the request, and said they would write to LBC again to ask for this.
On the 30th March they received a letter from the Strategic Development Manager of LLAL. It did not contain anything significantly new. It only contained phrases that could be found in any of the over-hyped press releases that have appeared over the life of the project.
LBC’s auditors, EY, stated in their audit report in 2018, that the trail of contracts/costs for DART was a concern as it was so obscure, and it would be very difficult for anyone wishing to follow it to actually do that.
LLAL claim the Dart is has nothing to do with passenger growth but cutting road traffic yet the consultation documents for 32m show major road improvements for the A505 all the way from the A1M at Stevenage, through Hitchin culminating in 6 sets of traffic lights being installed on residential roads in the closest Ward to the proposed Terminal 2 where there are none at the moment.
While we all look forward to the Dart opening there is no justification for it or its cost. The Council knows this, which is why they won't release the Five-Case Business Model. I doubt it was ever considered so I think there isn't one, as I can't see how a cost of £2.34m per second saved could ever be justified when under their own proposals road traffic levels will still rise considerably, which is their claimed sole reason for building it.
Last edited by LTNman; 4th Jul 2021 at 08:26.