Thanet District Council is calling on the government to make people pay for Freedom of Information requests - saying it would help discourage people from making so many.

The council has suggested a fee of £25 for each request to ease what it describes as the growing burden it faces dealing with them and complains that there is an “insatiable” appetite among the public.

The government has launched a review of how the Freedom of Information Act is working and whether reforms are needed.

Thanet was among hundreds of councils that responded to a call for evidence.

In its submission, it said that a nominal charge should be given “serious consideration” and “would have the effect of filtering out time wasting and futile requests”.

In support, it cited requests such as one that asked the council how many times libraries in Thanet had issued the adult blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey - despite the council having no responsibility for libraries.

It said that and other requests - such as one asking for the number of female council staff whose name begins with ‘A’ - illustrated “the ludicrous situation we are in".

A fee would “go some way towards covering the costs and discourage people from submitting a large number of requests".

They said the cost of responding to requests in 2014/15 was £65,000 in staff time costing an average of £67 per request. That would represent 0.3% of the council's 2015/16 budget of around £16.8m.

The council says that if the idea of charges is not taken up, then the government should introduce stricter time limits for dealing with requests.

Currently, the law says requests can be rejected if the estimated time to deal with them exceeds a notional 18 hours.

The council’s submission states: “The current time limit is both unrealistic and unaffordable for local authorities, given the volume of requests we are now dealing with.”

The prospect of fees for requests has been criticised by many, who believe it will deter requests and make it unaffordable for many.

Maurice Frankel, who heads the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: “Charges would be likely to deter a large number of requests.

"When a £15 fee was introduced in Ireland, it resulted in the number of requests falling by 25%. The same could happen here, reducing the scrutiny of public authorities.”

Thanet council also argues that the law should be changed to allow the time taken to redact information and ensure personal detail is not released should be incorporated into the limit.

“This places an enormous pressure on FOI officers and is often the single most burdensome of the request...it is extremely frustrating this cannot be factored in,” it states.

Those that operate in the corridors of power, corridors that are paid for by us, seem to hate the need for transparency - read our view here In The Editor's Chair

In 2014, we revealed through an FOI request that Thanet council had expressed concerns about possible mafia links that potential investors interested in saving the troubled ferry company TransEuropa might have.

We also revealed how the council had not presented any formal reports about plans to allow the same ferry companies to defer ferry Ramsgate port fees to ease the financial pressure it was under.