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 been caused significant injustice as a result of the alleged fault.
The complaint
Mrs X has complained on behalf of her mother, Mrs Y, about how the Council dealt with Mrs Y’s neighbour’s planning application. Mrs X says the Council failed to tell Mrs Y about the application and the new extension is too large and has a significant impact on Mrs Y’s garden.
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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, 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 Mrs X and 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 received two applications from Mrs Y’s neighbour. The Council says it wrote to Mrs Y to tell her about both proposed developments as required. The first application was an application for prior notification to build an extension. Prior notification is a process between permitted development (which does not require planning permission) and a full planning application. This applies where the development is, in principle, permitted development but the council needs to authorise certain elements of the work. As the Council did not receive any comments from Mrs Y it could not consider the impact the development would have on her amenity.
I understand Mrs X says her mother did not receive either of the Council’s letters and did not know planning permission had been granted until building work started. I cannot know for certain why Mrs Y did not receive the Council’s letters. However, even if the letters were not sent as Mrs X believes, I could not say Mrs Y was caused any significant injustice as a result.
While the Council did not consider the impact on Mrs Y’s home before granting prior approval for the extension originally proposed, this development was not built. Instead, a full planning application was made for a larger extension. I am satisfied the Council properly considered the acceptability of the larger extension, including the impact on neighbouring properties, before granting planning permission. The case officer’s report said the proposal would not have a significant impact on the privacy, outlook, daylight or sunlight to the neighbouring properties.
I understand Mrs X may disagree. But the case officer was entitled to use their professional judgment to decide the application was acceptable. As the Council properly considered the acceptability of the development that has been built, it is likely the planning decisions would have been the same had Mrs Y known about the applications and objected.
Mrs X has also complained about the Council’s complaint handling. However, where the Ombudsman has decided not to investigate the substantive issues complained about, we will not usually use public resources to consider more minor matters such as complaint handling.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because she has not been caused significant injustice as a result of the alleged fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman