Cornwall Council

The complainant requested information relating to a pre-planning application. Cornwall Council (the council) provided some of the information redacting parts under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 200 (FOIA). Following an Internal review the council considered this request to be environmental information and instead sought to rely on regulation 12(3) of the EIR. Following the internal review, more information was identified and some of this new information was withheld under regulation 12(5)(e) and 12(5)(f) of the EIR. The complainant initially asked the Commissioner to consider whether the council were correct to redact information, but then changed this to instead determine whether the council breached the EIR in the time it took to provide the information. The Commissioner’s decision is that the council has breached regulation 5(2) of the EIR as it did not provide the information within the required 20 working days. As the council has now provided the information, the Commissioner does not require it to take any steps.