The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a planning application. This is because the complainant has not suffered significant injustice as a result of the alleged fault.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, has complained about how the Council dealt with a planning application for a development near his home. Mr X says the Council did not notify him about the application and the development will have a significant impact on his privacy.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Councils are required to give publicity to planning applications. The publicity required depends on the nature of the development. However, in all cases the application must be published on the Council’s website.
In this case, the Council says it wrote to Mr X and told him about the application. Mr X disputes this and says he did not know about the application until building work started. However, even if I could say the Council did not publicise the application as it should have, I could not say Mr X has been caused significant injustice as a result.
I am satisfied the Council properly assessed the acceptability of the development, before granting planning permission. The case officer’s report said the proposal avoids harm to the character of the area and safeguards adequate standards of amenity. In response to Mr X’s complaint the Council has also said there would only be oblique views from the new dormer windows and Mr X’s home would maintain satisfactory levels of privacy.
I understand Mr X disagrees and says the applicant needed to make changes to a previous proposal for the site due to the impact on his amenity. However, the Council must consider each application on its own merits and the case officer was entitled to use their professional judgment to decide the second application was acceptable.
As the Council properly considered the acceptability of the development, it is likely the planning decision would have been the same had Mr X known about the application and objected.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has not suffered significant injustice as a result of the alleged fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman