The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about delay by the Council in deciding Mr Y’s planning application, or delays in the complaint-handling process. Mr Y had a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate regarding the Council’s non‑determination of his application which it was reasonable for him to have used. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling processes where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.
The complaint
Mrs X lives with Mr Y at an address where they also have a business. Mr Y submitted a planning application to do works to their property. Mrs X complains the Council: took almost seven months to decide Mr Y’s planning application; failed to communicate with them at any point during the process; failed to inform them of its decision to grant the permission; missed its own deadlines during the complaint process.
Mrs X says the planning delay caused months of avoidable delay to work they needed to do to start their new business. She says this caused them a lot of stress and wasted their time constantly chasing the matter with the Council’s officers.
Mrs X says she wants the Council to refund Mr Y’s planning fee, waive the charges for submitting further details about the project, and deal with the problems in its planning department.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b)) The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister. The Inspector considers appeals about: delay – usually over eight weeks – by an authority in deciding an application for planning permission; a decision to refuse planning permission; conditions placed on planning permission; a planning enforcement notice.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr Y had a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate on the grounds of the Council’s failure to determine his planning application. He had the right to make that appeal to the Inspectorate as soon as the Council missed the eight-week deadline.
We do not normally investigate planning complaints where someone has a formal right of appeal against something a council has done or failed to do. We may only investigate if there is evidence it would have been unreasonable for a planning applicant to use their appeal right. This may happen if a council repeatedly tells an applicant its officers’ decision on a delayed planning application is imminent, discouraging the applicant from using their appeal right. On Mrs X’s evidence, she or Mr Y were constantly chasing the Council about his planning application, but it failed to communicate with them at any point in the process. This indicates the Council was not responding to their chasers. The lack of any contact during the planning process means the Council could not have acted to dissuaded Mr Y from using his appeal right here.
It was not unreasonable for Mr Y to exercise his Planning Inspectorate non‑determination appeal right. It was the formal route provided by national government for him to pursue the delayed planning decision. We will not investigate this part of the complaint.
The core planning matter is resolved by the Council granting the permission Mr Y wanted. I recognise Mrs X also complains about poor Council communication during the planning process and that it did not tell Mr Y when it had decided his application. But an Inspectorate appeal would have considered Mr Y’s application afresh, taking the matter entirely out of the hands of the Council’s planning department. So it was within Mr Y’s control to avoid almost five months of involvement with the Council by appealing after the eight-week decision deadline had passed.
Mrs X says the Council missed its own internal complaint-handling deadlines. We do not investigate complaints about councils’ complaint-handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because: Mr Y had the right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate for non-determination of his application which it would not have been unreasonable for him to use; and we do not investigate complaints about councils’ complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman