Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council

The complainant made four requests concerning planning and parking matters. Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council noted that all the relevant information it held was already reasonably accessible and therefore relied on section 21 to withhold that information. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council should have dealt with requests 1, 2 and 3 under the EIR, but would have been entitled to rely on regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIR to refuse to provide information which was already publicly accessible. In respect of request 4, the Council was entitled to rely on section 21 in the manner that it has done. On the balance of probabilities, the Council holds no additional information within the scope of any of the requests. However, in failing to issue a refusal notice in respect of any of the requests within 20 working days, the Council breached regulation 14 of the EIR in respect of requests 1,2 and 3 and section 17 of the FOIA in respect of request 4. The Commissioner does not require any further steps to be taken.