Carlisle City Council (05C13355)

Planning enforcement                Maladministration causing injustice

14 May 2007

Carlisle City Council failed to take action over a developer’s failure to produce a landscaping scheme for a site, finds Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex. In her report she says “There is no point in including a condition in a planning permission if the Council has no intention of enforcing it.” She also says that the complaint had “exposed some matters of more general public concern” about tree protection issues.

‘Mr J’ (real names not used for legal reasons) lives on a large private housing development. He complained about a number of issues relating to the planning permission for the development, in particular that the Council failed to take effective action over the non-implementation of planning conditions, and that it failed to protect trees on the site.

The Ombudsman upheld some of his allegations. She found the Council failed to enforce the landscaping conditions, but that the injustice that flowed from this was not as great as Mr J believed, commenting “The developers appear overall to have created a pleasant environment to the satisfaction of the vast majority of residents.”

She found that protected trees were removed without clear indication in the Council’s files as to the reasons, and permission to fell diseased trees was not made conditional on replanting. In one case, permission was given to fell the wrong tree.

The Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice and, in accordance with her recommendations, the Council has agreed to:

• consider including in its policy a statement that landscaping conditions will normally be enforced;
• review its tree protection procedures and report to the Ombudsman within three months on what action it has taken; and
• pay the complainant £250 in recognition of his time and trouble in pursuing his complaint.

Date Published: 17/10/08