A letter was sent to the Tameside legal department regarding the initial response by them to not release the paperwork relating to their informal warning against Tameside Storage. They replied in the negative again, after which we approached the Information Commissioner.

I have presented your decision, one we all disagree with vehemently, to fellow victims of the fire at Tameside Storage. As you already know, there was the cumulative loss of some £6million (and more) in personal possessions and irreplaceable memories left in their paid trust of Tameside Storage at the time of the fire. As I am sure you will appreciate, irrespective of the invoking of Section 30(1)(b) of FOIA, we are all less than enamoured with the decision reached by the Information Commissioner, which we see, given the facts of the matter, as being totally against the public interest.

As alluded to in our initial request to you (now some nine months ago!), those losses were, in the main, a result of victims being attracted to using Tameside Storage by their patently misleading insurance advertising which resulted in most victims consequently not arranging their own insurance. This was coupled with the fire caused as a result of the failure of Tameside Storage's electrics (the Fire Services Report confirming this electrical failure was submitted to you).

We, as a group, have also not been able to ascertain whether Tameside Storage actually had public liability insurance at the time, or indeed whether they do so now, hence a further potential explanation as to why no compensation has been forthcoming from Tameside Storage.

Therefore, the loss of victims' goods was ultimately and firmly Tameside Storage's fault.

• An analogy would be that if your car was to fall off the hoist at your local MOT centre due to a failure of the MOT centre's equipment while they were examining it, you would not expect to have to replace your car from either your own insurance policy or out of your own pocket, the accident having been the result of faulty equipment at the MOT centre.

The Council are citing Section 30(1)(b) of FOIA which the ICO supports as a valid "reason" for not releasing the written warning about their misleading advertising. However, this has taken over two years (not far off 800 days, 270 of those awaiting for a response from your good selves alone). It will no doubt now go into four-figures unless we take further action via other means. This is not helped, after the fact, sadly, that the Council appears to us all to have done absolutely nothing.

This is therefore seen in our eyes as the Council totally abrogating their responsibilities, especially to many of those victims who are Council Tax payers in the Tameside Borough and see this as public servants plainly not serving the public (who I respectfully remind you ultimately pay their wages and expenses).

That potentially absolutely nothing has been done (yes, it may otherwise have been, and we would then stand corrected, but if so, the Council has not had the basic courtesy to inform us) by the Council is in our collective opinion a potential misuse of Section 30(1)(b) of the FOIA. That Tameside Storage is still trading is absolutely farcical and a total disgrace.

This entire spectacle, as the disgrace it is, very much now demonstrates the characteristics of a scandal.

We are now in the situation of wondering whether to attempt to enlist Private Eye Magazine and other national media, both broadcast and printed, to publicise this travesty. Perhaps you might be able to advise. What worries us all is that time is again passing, and our appeal to the ICO may take a further 9 and potentially fruitless months, wasting even more time. We suspect Section 30(1)(b) of the FOIA will continue to be evoked, the Council will still be seen as doing nothing about it, and most worryingly, Tameside Storage will continue to trade as if nothing has happened.

That we should have to now consider lobbying the media as a last resort, having wasted so much time thus far to nil avail, suggests something is amiss.

Robert Booth the Social Affairs Correspondent at the Guardian was contacted during April 2023, and was very interested in writing a piece. Unfortunately, this never materialised.

Experience demonstrates that while this final resort can be avoidable, sadly, nowadays, it seems to be the only way we ordinary members of the public can get something done in these "jobsworthless" situations. It is all reticent, although far less serious, of the Post Office scandal, where the CEO at the time, Vennells, assured everyone that the Horizon financial accounting system from Fujitsu could do no wrong! That is, apart from making totally incorrect financial accounting calculations leading to the biggest miscarriage of justice in modern history and ruining hundreds of lives and families in the process! It was only the doggedness of the media that brought this particular scandal to a head.

We cannot understand how allowing Tameside Storage to continue to trade over two years down the line after the event can itself be, to quote the Council's words, in the public interest. We also wonder how this can actually be even morally acceptable.

Perhaps as harbingers of the legislation, the Information Commissioner, or even Tameside Council who are invoking it, can explain more precisely how it is not in the public interest to release the information we requested in our efforts to obtain some redress for a company's complete lack of any duty of care whatsoever towards their paying customers.

However, we feel it is perhaps then otherwise very much in the public's interest to publicise this matter, and expose Tameside Storage, alongside what most of the victims see as a very lacklustre performance by the publicly-funded authorities involved. The length of time it has dragged on and the total lack of our ability to otherwise gain some form of reparation for our enormous losses, or to even simply find out what is going on, is wholly unacceptable.

That a group of people paying for a service in good faith have lost precious items trusted to a storage company through no fault of their own as a result of a combination of misleading advertising, faulty electricals, a potential lack of public liability insurance, not receiving the service they paid for, and now, a seeming avoidance of responsibility or action via what would appear to be the invocation of Section 30(1)(b) of the FOIA, is completely reprehensible.

We would have thought the early intervention by the local MP alone would have demonstrated the injustice and subsequently elicited a more positive response from the Council.

A cynical observer could actually go as far as to question whether the length of time that has been allowed to pass with no action, apart from shallow excuses, combined with the evidence available to support the victims, might actually be seen as an attempt to hide something! (Not, you will of course understand, that we members of the victims' group would ever consider that as an accusation towards any of the publicly-funded parties involved ourselves).

The sole benefactors have most certainly only been Tameside Storage, who have continued in business unconcerned and totally unrepentant, once more raking in money from the public over a period in excess of two years.

We would therefore very much appreciate a more detailed explanation other than the Council hiding behind Section 30(1)(b) of FOIA and their apparent complete lack of activity in relation to securing some redress of the £6million+ loss suffered.

To give you a better idea of the losses from some of the victims, you may potentially appreciate why they do not agree with the decision you have made. Many of these sums are approximate and on the low side. Names have been purposefully obfuscated:

Ailyce X - £3,000
Angelina X - £9,000

Anne and William X - £6,500

Christine and J D X £25,000 including irreplaceable memorabilia from famous family member

Colleen X - £4,500 of her own and her sister's treasured belongings

Donna X - £20,000
Crystal X - £10,000
Ed X - £9,000 + 100 years of irreplaceable photographs and family memorabilia

Elaine X - £30,000
Fathima X £4,000

Gary X - £4,000

John X - £8,000

Johnny X - £5,000
Karen X - £10,000 plus irreplaceable family memorabilia all water-damaged
Luan Xl - £6,000
Paula X - £20,000

Rajenki X - £3,200
Rebecca X - £25,000 including ALL family memorabilia
Rebecca X - almost £100,000 of business stock
Ronky X - £10,000

Smile X - £8,000

Steve X - £25,000, family/house personal possessions pending a house move

Steve X - £14,000 including irreplaceable family photographs/videos
Susan X - £4,000

Wendy X - £25,000 family/house personal possessions pending a house move

The above losses (a staggering £388,200 from just 25 of the some 130 victims) do not include the storage fees paid by ALL the victims to Tameside Storage over the months/years prior to the fire.

We can only assume the Council's CEO herself didn't entrust Tameside Storage with any of her own personal possessions. Had she done so, we presume we might have seen some action long, long ago.

£6 million+ of personal belongings and treasured possessions were lost by customers of Tameside Storage in February 2021 in a fire at ther premises, said to be caused by, according to the Fire Services, an electrical fault, and no one,  including Tameside Council, seems to care, yet Tameside Storage is still trading as if nothing happened.

Many customers were taken in by false 'free insurance' marketing claims. Tameside Council issued a written warning to the company about their "free insurance", yet refused to reveal the contents of that warning under an FOI request (that the Information Commissioner, for some strange, on 02 May 2023 reason, agreed with), claiming it is "not in the public interest" to do so. This makes it impossible for customers to take a class action and gain any redress.

Meanwhile, Tameside Council's Trading Standards have done nothing, neither has the Council itself since February 2021 (over three and a half years) about taking Tameside Storage to task, two reasons cited by the Information Commissioner being, "Clearly it is not in the public interest to jeopardise the Council’s ability to regulate and enforce compliance with the law" and that "The Commissioner has viewed the withheld information and considers that its contents are not of such significance as to override the public interest in maintaining the exemption." It was certainly very much of public interest to those who lost everything in the fire! Meanwhile, nothing has been done by the Council, so why withhold the information when those who lost their possessions could have been doing something in the meantime?

This is a total travesty of justice and something needs to be done urgently. While it's not a scandal on the scale of the Post Office Horizon one, it is nevertheless a scandal, and that someone, somewhere, appears to perhaps be hiding something is the only logical conclusion that can be drawn.

It also appears that the chap who owns Tameside Storage may be having a rather large extension built onto his home (apologies, no citation available - E&OE on this paragraph), as if it is not enough of a Horizon scandal as it is. 

Rather strangely, these two newspaper items appeared this month (September 2024). As of yet, nil redress or compensation to any of the victims from Tameside Storage owner/s, and NO further legal action by the Council, the reason cited why they could not release (under FOI) the warning letter sent by Tameside Trading Standards to Tameside Storage, as the pending (but that never happened) legal action meant releasing the warning letter was deemed "not in the public interest".

https://www.tamesidecorrespondent.co.uk/2024/09/16/denton-warehouse-damaged-by-fire-to-be-rebuilt/

Plainly, Tameside Council have learnt nothing from the Post Office Horizon scandal. And here below are the published remunerations of Tameside Council senior officers 2022/2023, few of whom we suspect lost any possession in the Tameside Storage fire. (The Prime Minister was receiving a lower salary than the Tameside CEO at that time)