THE Press has lost a Freedom of Information battle over the legal advice given to City of York Council about the Lendal Bridge closure.
The newspaper had asked council bosses to release copies of any legal advice they were given before the trial bridge closure, but the requests were turned down because of the council’s appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal over the linked Coppergate bus lane fines.
The council argued that with the Coppergate battle then still ongoing, the legal advice should not be made public as all its advice related to both Lendal Bridge and the Coppergate enforcement.
The Press had accepted that the Coppergate issue remained live, so the information could be legitimately kept confidential, but said advice relating only to Lendal Bridge should be disclosed.
Now the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s information watchdog, has ruled in favour of the council, saying that the legal advice needs to remain private to make sure clients such as the authority can be open and frank with their legal advisors.
The commissioner also ruled that despite the heavy public opposition to the Lendal Bridge closure, and the amount of public money involved, there was not a strong enough public interest to force the council to publish their legal advice.
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