Information Commissioner's Office

Cornwall Council

24 June 2015, Local government (District council)

The complainants requested information from Cornwall Council (“the council”) relating to land adjacent to a holiday park. The council refused to respond to the requests because it considered that they were manifestly unreasonable under regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (“the EIR”) and the public interest did not favour disclosure. The Commissioner considered that regulation 12(4)(b) was correctly applied to some of the information requested but not all of it. In relation to the information that was not excepted, the Commissioner found a breach of regulation 5(2) for the failure to respond appropriately to the request within 20 working days. The Commissioner requires the public authority to respond to the request dated 11 August 2014 by either providing the information or relying on an exception other than regulation 12(4)(b). The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.

EIR 5(2): Upheld EIR 12(4)(b): Partly upheld