Department for Communities and Local Government

The complainant made a request for a copy of the Planning Inspector’s report of a public inquiry held into proposed motorway service areas on the M1 and A1M in North Yorkshire. The Planning Inspectorate withheld the report until the planning decision had been made, on the basis that it was an internal communication under regulation 12(4)(e) of the EIR. The Commissioner decided that the Planning Inspectorate had applied regulation 12(4)(e) correctly and that the public interest was best served by maintaining the exception from the requirement to release information in regulation 5(1) of those regulations.