Access to information policy

We will provide access to information about our activities that relate to or affect the environment, unless there is a good reason for us not providing it.

Requests for information under EIR can be made verbally or in writing, including via social media.

Disclosure of information should be the default.

A person requesting the information does not need to give a reason for wanting the information, however we must justify refusing them information.

We will:

• treat all requests for information equally
• treat any information we release under EIR as if it were being released to the world at large
• always respond in writing, regardless of whether the request was made verbally or in writing, reasonable adjustments for accessibility reasons will be considered
• tell the requester whether we hold any information
• make that information available, unless an exception applies

We will normally respond to a request within 20 working days. If we believe that the request complexity and volume would make it impractical to comply or reach a decision about whether to refuse the request, within 20 working days we may seek to extend the time for compliance from 20 to 40 working days.

We do not initially charge for making an EIR request, however we may charge an appropriate fee for complying with some requests for information.

We will supply a detailed breakdown and explanation of charges to the requester.