How to Keep Things Dark

The way to stop people knowing what's happening to public land and wider public assets is to hand it over to some outside organisation like a wildlife trust or the RSPB/National Trust. They will then keep the public body informed what's going on but absolve the publc authority of the legal imperative to inform the public. Thus the people who own this land, i.e. the public itself is kept in the dark, asking questions but having no automatic right to know. This is brought into clear focus by my Freedom of Information request to the Peak National Park Authority

My request was for details of aspects of the consultaion being allegedly carried out by the EMP on their plans for the Eastern Moors. Simply I wanted to know who was being consulted and how? My original request was as follows:

"Could you please provide me with details of any consultations
carried out relating to the management of the PDNPA's land on the
Eastern Peak District Moors by the authority and/or the Eastern
Moors Partnership. I would like to see details of meetings and
those attending held since September 2010 plus details of any
meetings planned but not yet held. If there have been meetings with
individuals or groups identified as 'stakeholders' could you please
supply names of groups invited. Please also forward the themes,
agendas and minutes of the meetings."

Seeing as this is public land and a public asset that is being dealt with and that we are apparently in an age of transparency, and that I was told at the introductory consultation meeting that the partnership was totally transparent, I'm at a loss to understand what the problem is. But more than two months after the request I've had nothing but delay and evasion. Finally I asked for an internal review and that has now been reported in an email published on What Do They Know. Have a read and consider. Is this reasonable? he context is that all the people involved in these decisions are servants of the public. Why would they want to withold or delay giving such simple information?

This must have serious implications for the possible takeover of the Sheffield Moors by what is really the same group. Sheffield City Council's Cabinet must surely be made to understand that any such handover is effectively denying basic rights to information of its citizens.