In the case of R (English) v East Staffordshire Borough Council & Anor [2010] EWHC 27441 where some commercial information had been kept private, the High Court refused permission for judicial review. The court noted: • The local authority has a duty to ensure sufficient information is made available to enable an intelligent response from the planning committee; but • It was sufficient to disclose the “gist” of the information as the report had been independently verified. How would your LPA handle the following? 1. a request for a Business Plan to be kept totally private, except for the Conclusions section 2. a request for supporting data etc generated by a proprietary process to be kept totally private, except for the Conclusions section 3. a request for supporting data etc generated by a proprietary process to be blocked from the web but to made available in paper form SUBJECT TO A SIGNED NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) In other words, if an applicants or their agents/consultants have invested extensive time & effort in preparing technical & other supporting data, using hard-won skills & techniques and/or extensive research time and/or custom software why should they be expected to provide the results of their labours free of charge to future applicants or to commercial competitors?
