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Another week and another victory for PALI in their continuing struggle to gain their legally entitled access to environmental information. The Basildon office of PALI (Property And Land Information) lodged a second complaint, this time against Tendring District Council for refusing access to Building Control records and charging to provide the information. In line with their previous complaint against Maldon Council, Jeremy Tyler of the Basildon office complained that Tendring were operating restrictive practices as the information he was requesting access to was environmental and should be available to the public free of charge under European law. The council disputed this and continued to refuse access to the information. Jeremy went as far as he could with internal complaints and during lengthy email exchanges, Tendring re-iterated its refusal so Jeremy reported the council to The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) which rules on these matters.

The ICO contacted the Council giving them ample time to change their mind, which the Council refused to do, therefore, inline with two similar cases that the ICO has ruled on, it was expected that the ruling would be in line with these previous rulings. That is in fact what happened and the ruling was in favour of PALI and against firstly Maldon and now Tendring.

This latest decision by the ICO can be read on this blog CLICKING HERE.

In summary the decision was that the information requested was environmental and access should be freely available at a point designated for that purpose and within a reasonable time scale.

Jeremy Tyler, Director of PALI Basildon said, “This may be the battle won but not the war, it is going to take time to get all councils complying with the law, this is an abuse of power and we will do all we can to ensure that councils work within its remit and do not abuse their powers.”

Decision Notice