Request
I am writing to request information under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 ('the EIR').
What I am requesting. A machine-readable extract of your planning application register, covering all applications recorded in the register from the earliest date held to the present, containing only the following fields:
- application reference number
- site address, and UPRN where held
- proposal description
- application type
- date received / date valid
- decision
- decision date
- appeal status and appeal decision, where held
- ward or community where held
- easting/northing or latitude/longitude, where held
What I am expressly not requesting. To assist you, and to remove any question arising under regulation 13, I do not seek and do not want applicant names, applicant addresses, agent names or contact details, signatures, telephone numbers, email addresses, or any third-party representations, objections, or consultation responses. If your system cannot export the fields listed above without also exporting personal data, please tell me and I will work with you on scope rather than requiring you to redact.
Why this falls under the EIR and not the Freedom of Information Act. Planning application records are environmental information within regulation 2(1)(c) of the EIR, being 'measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes ... and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in (a) and (b)'. The Information Commissioner's published guidance confirms that 'information about planning matters and planning decisions are often environmental information'. Because the information is environmental information, section 39 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 exempts it from the duty to communicate under that Act, and the request accordingly falls to be handled under the EIR. Insofar as any discrete element of what I have requested is held not to be environmental information, please treat this as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in respect of that element alone.
Format. I request the information in CSV or another structured, machine-readable format, under regulation 6(1). I recognise that regulation 6(1)(b) may apply where information is already publicly available and easily accessible in another form. I would ask you to consider that a paginated public search interface is not equivalent to a bulk structured extract for the purpose set out below, and that regulation 6(1)(b) requires the information to be easily accessible to the applicant as a dataset.
On burden. Article 40(10) of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 requires every entry in the register to be made within fourteen days of receipt of an application. The register is therefore a maintained, current, and structured record, and what I have requested is an export of fields you already hold in that form, not a compilation exercise. Should you consider regulation 12(4)(b) engaged, I would note that the EIR contain no cost ceiling equivalent to section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, that the Commissioner's guidance states an authority 'may be required to accept a greater burden in providing environmental information than other information', that 'manifestly' requires an obvious or clear quality to the unreasonableness relied upon, and that any refusal under regulation 12(4)(b) remains subject to the public interest test with the regulation 12(2) presumption in favour of disclosure applied.
On charges. Regulation 8(2)(a) provides that no charge may be made for allowing an applicant to access public registers or lists of environmental information. Should you nonetheless propose a charge under regulation 8(1), please provide your published schedule of charges as required by regulation 8(8), and note that any charge must not exceed a reasonable amount.
Response
The information you have requested is set out in the attachment below.
Attachments
Attachment