Council chiefs in York have apologised for an "unacceptable failure" after more than 250 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests went unanswered.

The backlog came to light after The Press received a response to a request more than two years after it was sent by one of our reporters. The request concerned City of York Council's legal costs in a planning inquiry over Askham Bog.

The council said 261 unanswered FOI requests accumulated over a 30 month period, which began during the Covid pandemic.

The local authority said that between the end of August 2023 and September 13, 93 of the 261 backlogged queries had been responded to.

Bryn Roberts, director of governance at the council, said: "The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) have confirmed their findings that as of August 2023, City of York Council has accrued a backlog of 261 un-answered FOI requests which breach the legal requirements upon the council.

“The council fully accepts that we have not met the required standards of responding to FOI requests.

"Whilst there are numerous reasons for our current situation, this is still an unacceptable failure and we apologise whole-heartedly for it.

"The current situation is simply not good enough, and we are already working to address the factors that resulted in this backlog, which include understaffing and some process and system problems.

"We have given an assurance to the Information Commissioner that we will clear the backlog over the coming months, along with an apology which we are happy to repeat to customers who have been affected.”

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The council said that during investigations a small number of responses were identified that had been issued but not logged, meaning that a response had been sent, but had not been appropriately logged.

Council chiefs said they were confident they could eliminate the backlog within the timescale agreed with the ICO.

They added that the authority would be publishing an improvement plan, outlining how the backlog was being dealt with and how procedures would be revised and strengthened to ensure a similar situation does not occur in the future.

The FOI response received by The Press two years after it was submitted concerned the cost of the council's legal fees for a planning appeal over a bid to build 500 homes on land off Moor Lane - next to Askham Bog.

City of York Council's planning committee originally turned the plans down - but the developer appealed the decision and a planning inquiry was held at the end of 2019.

The plans were finally turned down by the Government in May 2020 following a planning appeal.

The FOI response revealed that the council's legal fees from the appeal were £71,196.

It added that the venue hire and security cost £8,547.56, while the services of a hydrology specialist cost £37,973.

Sir David Attenborough had backed the campaign to help save the nature reserve and had called on “all those who love the natural world” to help fight the plans to build homes next to the York bog.