Approvals of dwellings in the Green Zone (FOI)

Request

Would you be able to provide me with a number of dwellings that have been approved by the planning department to be built in Green Zones in the last five years?

Response

The Department has only actively monitored approvals of dwellings in the Green Zone since January 2016. These figures are set out below:

January to December 2016: 36 units

January to August 2017: 30 units

To retrieve data for the preceding years would require manually searching through over 1,200 decisions per year. To retrieve and extract the information in reference to your request would exceed the cost limit provisions allowed under article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 and the 12.5 hours maximum allowed under regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014.

Exemptions applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.