Information Commissioner's Office

Summary: The complainant made a number of requests to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (the -�DECC-�) on 18 May 2010 relating to the primary and secondary legislation and other prescribed rules, regulations, and procedures governing the acquisition of land rights and the acquisition of other permissions, in connection with high voltage overhead powerlines. The DECC refused to comply with the requests under section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as it deemed the requests vexatious. The Commissioner considers that section 14(1) was applied correctly to some of the requests: however he has found that some of the requests were for environmental information. During the course of the Commissioner-�s investigation the DECC applied regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 to the parts of the request for environmental information as it deemed those requests to be manifestly unreasonable. The Commissioner considers that regulation 12(4)(b) was applied correctly to the environmental information. The complainant subsequently made another request for information relating to the same subject matter on 16 June 2010. The DECC did not respond to this request. The Commissioner considers that the request of 16 June 2010 was for environmental information and requires the DECC to respond to this request under the appropriate legislation. Information Tribunal appeal number EA/2011/0129 dismissed.
Section of Act/EIR & Finding: FOI 14 - Complaint Not upheld, EIR 12.4.b - Complaint Not upheld, EIR 14 - Complaint Upheld