£25 charge for residents – to ask council about noise

PEOPLE requesting information about noise, air quality and pollution in the Vale of Glamorgan face new charges.

The Vale of Glamorgan Council will start charging £25 per hour for requests under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Environmental Information Regulations deal with requests for information about issues such as air, atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape, natural sites, noise, energy and waste.

Requests under the 2004 act make up 41% of all formal requests for information received by the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

The council’s cabinet approved the new charges yesterday and they are effective immediately.

It comes after the Information Commissioner suggested £25 per hour would be a reasonable charge for environmental information requests, a council report says.

People unable to pay the new charges would be able to apply to the council’s information manager for an exemption or modified rate.

“This will be determined on a case by case basis taking into account the economic situation of the person requesting the information and any undue hardship on them and the public interest in the protection of the environment,” the policy says.

The majority of costs to the council in processing environmental information requests related to staff time, a report from the Corporate Performance and Resources Scrutiny Committee found.

Under its newly-adopted access to information policy, the council will also not provide information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for requests which would take longer than 18 hours to complete.