News & Updates

Plymouth City Council reprimanded over fee charging policy

Public bodies that think they can deter persons seeking environmental information by charging them for it should think again.

In a letter to Plymouth City Council (PCC), following a complaint made on behalf of our client, the founder of Save the Trees of Armada Way (STRAW), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued PCC with a strong rebuke. The ICO is clear that:

• a blanket fee for charging after anything less than 18 hours of work (as applies under the Freedom of Information Act regime) is most likely unreasonable;
• any fees imposed must not deter persons from requesting environmental information;
• charges levied must not exceed the costs incurred for making the information available; and
• crucially, it is not reasonable to charge where the information is of wider public interest, such as in this instance where PCC’s scheme involved felling over a hundred mature trees in the city centre.

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The basic but important legal question in this case is whether a provision in a local authority’s constitution, whose effect was to restrict voting by members (in this case a Planning Committee), was lawful.  The issue is of wide public importance.  It goes to the ability of those who are elected to exercise the powers which they were elected to use.  The power in question is the most basic one of an elected politician: the right to vote in decisions of the body to which they were elected. The case was brought by the Spitalfields Historic Building Trust (“the Trust”) who sought to challenge the controversial grant of planning permission by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to Old Truman Brewery to develop part of the Old Truman Brewery site on Brick Lane.  The Trust were unsuccessful in the High Court but obtained permission to appeal from the Court of Appeal.

There were over 7,000 written objections.  The headline objections included concerns about the introduction of large companies to the development, creation of a shopping mall, effect on local businesses, gentrification, community cohesion, proposed land uses on the site, impact to local character and businesses, concerns of design and scale causing harm to heritage assets, obscuring of views of the Truman chimney, amenity impact to neighbouring residents including daylight and sunlight impact to Woodseer Street and the lack of a development brief for the wider estate.

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