FOI and EIR making a request
Making a request
For any other information, please email us or if you need to write a letter, mark it for the attention of the Information Governance Team.
An FOI request must be made in writing (email is fine). An EIR request can be made either in writing or verbally. You do not need to quote the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations in your request.
Tell us who you are so that we can reply to you.
We need your name and contact details. An email address is fine.
If you provide both a postal and email address, we will use the email address to correspond with you.
Be as specific as possible.
You do not have to tell us why you are requesting the information, although it may help us to identify exactly what you want if the request is complex.
Let us know what time period your request covers, and if it applies to a particular town, location, team or person.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) provides detailed guidance on how to make a Freedom of Information request.
What information can I request?
You can request any information which is held in any recorded format by the council, or held by its partners on the council’s behalf.
What is the difference between FOI and EIR?
The EIR apply to all information which relates to the environment, in its broadest sense, including land, air, water, soil, buildings, animals and people, pollution of all kinds, waste, health and safety. This also includes reports, measures and analysis of environmental information.
The FOI Act applies to all other information.
You do not need to specify whether you are requesting information under FOI or EIR.
What information will NOT be supplied?
There are several exemptions and exceptions under FOI and EIR which define when the council can refuse to issue information to you.
This includes:
- information about yourself (this should be requested under Data Protection legislation). Please see our Data Protection webpage for how to make a request)
- information about other individuals - this is usually also exempt under Data Protection legislation.
- information which is already published by the council or publicly available elsewhere, even if there is a fee for obtaining it.
- where your request is too vague or broad, so that it would take an unreasonable amount of time and resource for the council to answer it. In this case, we will contact you to ask you to be more specific or to narrow the request to ask for less information.
If we refuse to supply information to you, we must explain why, quoting one of the exemptions (FOI) or exceptions (EIR).
A full list of exemptions and exceptions is available on the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) website.