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.
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. He says the Council did not publicise the application as it should have, and he lost the opportunity to object to the development. Mr X says the Council did not properly assess the application and its decision to grant planning permission was not in line with its policy. Mr X says the development will have a significant impact on his property.
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. The Council’s statement of Community Involvement says for all developments it will also write directly to any adjoining owners or occupiers.
Mr X’s property adjoins the application site, and the Council accepts it should have written to him to tell him about the development and has apologised.
However, I cannot say Mr X has been caused significant injustice because of the Council’s error. Although Mr X lost the opportunity to object to the proposal, I am satisfied the Council did still properly assess the acceptability of the development, including the impact on neighboring properties, before granting planning permission. The case officer’s report referred to the size of the proposed dormer and decided it would be acceptable. The report also addressed the impact on neighboring amenity. The officer accepted there would be increased overlooking between the development site and the neighboring properties. But decided that due to the established relationship and distance between the properties there would not be a harmful loss of privacy.
Mr X says the case officer should have visited his home to assess the impact of the development. But there is no requirement for councils to visit neighbouring properties before granting planning permission and the Council has explained how it was able to determine the application without carrying out a visit to Mr X’s home. Furthermore, the Council has visited Mr X’s property in response to his complaint.
I understand Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision to grant planning permission. But the case officer was entitled to use their professional judgment to decide the development was acceptable. As the Council properly considered the acceptability of the application, it is likely the decision to grant planning permission would be 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 been caused significant injustice because of the Council’s error.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman