In the wake of the new Freedom of Information Act Wiltshire County Council has received requests for information that would cost several thousand pounds to provide.

The act came into force on January 1 and allows the public access to information held by public authorities, subject to certain limited exemptions. So far the county council has received 34 requests for information and the costs in dealing with them vary significantly.

One of the requests would cost more than £4,100 and five requests would cost more than £3,500 while the least expensive would cost £13.

A spokesman said one of the requests received would require 27,000 pages of information across several departments and organisations.

The high cost reflects officers' time in finding the relevant pages, photocopying and postage.

He said the expensive requests would take officers weeks to find all the information rather than days.

The spokesman said if the people concerned requesting the information were willing to pay the cost then the county would provide the information.

The county council has not taken on extra staff to deal with Freedom of Information requests but the spokesman said it was monitoring the situation. "We have not been deluged with requests for information so far but we are just a few weeks in so we need to keep an eye on the situation," said the spokesman.