Local Government Ombudsman

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Bristol City Council (06B01379, 07B02281)

Planning applications                 Maladministration causing injustice

30 July 2008

The complaint

Two people (one lived in a sheltered housing complex) complained that the Council had granted permission for the change of use of a nearby industrial unit to a waste recycling centre without notifying affected residents or consulting the environmental health department.

What happened

The Council received the application for the change of use of the building in December 2004. The senior planning officer noted on the file a query about consulting environmental health on whether the change would lead to problems. However, the consultation did not take place. The Council did post a notice on the site and in the local press to publicise the application but did not notify nearby residents. The officer dealing with the case decided that they lived too far away. The nearest homes were around 95 metres away.

The change of use was granted, subject to conditions, including one limiting the waste recycling activity to within the building. The facility started operating in July 2005 and the council received its first complaint in August. The environmental health department investigated and established that the operation was causing a nuisance.

The Council organised a meeting of the departments involved and the Environment Agency (who issued the waste management licence). Between October 2005 and May 2006 the Council investigated the problem and possible solutions, commissioning consultants and seeking advice from legal counsel.

The noise from the recycling centre was recorded at plus 17 decibels. This measurement scale is a logarithmic scale so that every two decibels increase is a doubling of the noise. The noise was from skips being dropped and dragged, and from waste sorting that involved noisy machinery.

The Council had meetings with the operator of the facility and commissioned a further consultant’s report in November 2006. This concluded that the operator had changed its practice and was complying with the conditions of the planning consent. Monitoring by the Council concluded that there was no longer a statutory noise nuisance, although it was accepted that the operation did produce some noise.

The Ombudsman’s view

The Ombudsman was critical of the Council for the failures during the processing of the planning application. He did not conclude that the change of use would have been refused if there had been consultation, but he did consider that an opportunity was lost to ensure better control of the site from the start. He said that this resulted in the complainants suffering avoidable nuisance between August 2005 and November 2006.

Outcome

The Ombudsman recommended the Council to:

  • pay the complainants £2,000 each;
  • review its procedures to ensure that the maladministration identified did not recur; and
  • continue to monitor the site and, once the outcome of the latest monitoring was known, take action if there was evidence of a statutory noise nuisance in order to protect the amenities of local residents.

Date Updated: 13/01/09