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The Appellant’s request for environmental information
The Appellant’s request for environmental information
On 8 August 2021 Mr Craddock made the following request to the Council:
I request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 or the INSPIRE Regulations 2009 (as amended), as may apply, a copy of all digitised tithe maps for the County of Kent, A1 Reference: IC-144241-S0K1 2 to be supplied in electronic form on a portable hard disk, or alternatively to be made available for download on a file transfer facility.
I will on request supply a portable hard disk for this purpose. I am content to receive the data for each tithe map as a number of individual components in image files.
On 31 August 2021 the Council responded, in essence advising Mr Craddock that (i) the tithe maps were available to access at its archive centre, (ii) the maps were very large and so facsimiles had been created, (iii) he could arrange an appointment to view the documents by contacting the archive team; and (iv) digital copies were available for purchase. On 3 September 2021 the Council clarified that its response had been made by reference to regulation 6(1) of the EIR. Mr Craddock then lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner about the Council’s handling of his request.
- Heading
- The decision of the Upper Tribunal is to dismiss the appeal. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal made on 8 January 2024 under number EA/2022/0455 was not made in error of law (section 11 of the Tr
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- The parties to this appeal
- The factual context of this appeal
- The Appellant’s request for environmental information
- The Information Commissioner’s Decision Notice
- The First-tier Tribunal’s decision and the further grounds of appeal
- Ground 1: Was the information ‘publicly available’ within regulation 6(1)(b)?
- The First-tier Tribunal’s decision
- The parties’ submissions on Ground 1
- Discussion
- Ground 2: Was the information ‘easily accessible’ within regulation 6(1)(b)?
- The First-tier Tribunal’s decision
- The parties’ submissions on Ground 2
- Discussion
- Ground 3: The application of the FOIA regime
- The First-tier Tribunal’s decision
- The parties’ submissions on Ground 3
- Discussion
- Conclusions