London Borough of Hackney
- Date 4 November 2022
- Sector Local government
- Decision(s) EIR 11.4: Upheld, EIR 12.5.d: Not upheld, EIR 5.2: Upheld
The complainant submitted a request to the London Borough of Hackney (the Council) seeking information about pre-planning application exchanges between it and the prospective developers of the 55 Morning Lane (Tesco) site. The Council withheld this information on the basis of regulations 12(5)(d) (confidentiality of proceedings), 12(5)(e) (confidentiality of commercial information) and 12(5)(f) (interests of the person who provided the information) of the EIR.
The Commissioner’s decision is that requested information is exempt from disclosure on the basis regulation 12(5)(d) and that in all the circumstances of the request the public interest favours maintaining the exception. However, the Commissioner has concluded that the Council has breached regulations 5(2) and 11(4) by failing to respond to the request and complete the internal review within the time limits required by the legislation.