A pricing row between the Environment Agency and the companies that provide environmental data to house vendors threatens to disrupt the launch of the government’s seller’s pack.
The agency plans to change the way it prices the data on areas such as land use, flood plains and pollution threats that it sells to private search companies. The companies provide reports for homebuyers using the information from the EA and through other sources.
Environmental search agency Sitescope says the change in pricing of EA data will force it to charge customers double the current fee of £29.38 for its own reports.
Sitescope has lodged an official complaint with the Office of Fair Trading about the increase, and has written to environment minister Michael Meacher to complain.
The pricing change comes as the EA is launching its own environmental reports aimed at homebuyers. The companies fear that the new EA product will be much cheaper than theirs and is likely to become the officially preferred report in the government’s seller’s pack.
Vision, p104
