Warwick District Council

The complainant requested recorded information concerning the size (acreage/hectares) of specified areas at St Mary’s Lands (SML) from Warwick District Council (“the council”). The council said that no information is held by it, and directed the complainant to publicly available sources such as the Land Registry and Google Maps. The council subsequently located and disclosed some information to the complainant at internal review, however, it maintained its position that other information is not held by it, and applied Regulation 12(4)(a). The Commissioner’s decision is that the council was not correct to apply Regulation 12(4)(a) as it has not demonstrated, on a balance of probabilities, that it does not hold any further relevant information. He has also decided that the council did not comply with the requirements of Regulation 5(2) of the EIR in that it did not disclose the information it did hold within 20 working days of receiving the request. The Commissioner requires the council to carry our searches of its systems for information relevant to part 2 of the request, and to issue a fresh response to the complainant under Regulation 5(1) of the EIR.