Local Government Ombudsman

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Plymouth City Council (01B03243 FR)

Environmental health                 Further report

19 July 2005

‘Mr Greaves’ (not his real name for legal reasons) lived near the perimeter of Plymouth Airport. He complained that the Council had failed to control the activities of the flying school that operated from there. He suffered from intrusive noise caused by training flights carried out by the school. The airport lease did not permit the school to undertake training flights at weekends, and prohibited activities that cause unreasonable nuisance or annoyance to local residents. The Council failed to enforce these provisions of the lease. The flying school operates seven days a week. The Council’s environmental health department confirmed that training flights can cause unreasonable nuisance.

In his first report (November 2002), the Ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice and recommended the Council to:

  • pay Mr Greaves £500 per year for each year since the beginning of 2001;
  • continue to pay Mr Greaves the same amount for each succeeding year that the problem remains unresolved;
  • pay £250 to Mr Greaves for his time and trouble; and 
  • take whatever steps are necessary to regulate weekend activities of the flying school.

Since then, Council officers reported on this matter at a number of its meetings, the Ombudsman had pressed the Council for action and raised the matter in a meeting with its Chief Executive, and yet, the Ombudsman said, “…the Council has not taken any steps which, in my view, resolve the problem and remove the injustice to Mr Greaves”.

In June 2004, the Council issued a ‘reasonable direction’on weekend training flights to the airport operators, but it had not enforced this effectively.

As the Council had not remedied the injustice, the Ombudsman issued his second (further) report, in which he called on the Council to reconsider the matter, enforce the direction, and taken whatever other action is open to it through the terms of the airport lease to do justice to the complainant. Until such time as the Council has taken effective steps to regulate the operations of the flying school, it should continue to make annual payments of £500 to Mr Greaves.

Date Updated: 30/07/09