Council charges for upgrade information are 'not reasonable'

AUTHORITY TRIED TO CHARGE £68 FOR MAP

- WILLIAM TELFORD

PLYMOUTH City Council has been told it is unreasonable to charge people for information about the Armada Way upgrade if it takes more than 15 minutes of work to supply it.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has gone even further and told the authority it should not be charging at all and ought to put all the news on its website so people do not even have to ask for it.

The ICO has written to the city council after receiving a complaint from action group Save the Trees of Armada Way (Straw), which was unhappy after being asked to pay £68 for a map, and hearing many other people were being charged for information requests.

The ICO said the Armada Way scheme, which led to 110 trees being felled in March, is of such wide public interest it is not reasonable to charge for supplying information.

The council said it received nearly 1,000 Freedom of Information (FoI) and Environmental Information Regulation (EIR) requests about the £12.7 million Armada Way redevelopment plans. It said a complaint was made to the ICO after it charged £68 for a map, and was told this was too high, but stressed it had not been reprimanded.