Selby District Council (06B03908)

Planning applications                 Maladministration causing injustice

24 July 2007

The report prepared by Selby District Council on an application to demolish buildings in a conservation area had “serious deficiencies”. In her report the Ombudsman says “Officers, who lacked professional knowledge and expertise, accepted uncritically the applicant’s assertions that converting the building was not commercially viable.” The planning committee that approved the application therefore lacked all the relevant information on which to make its decision.

The Selby Civic Society complained about the way the Council decided to approve the demolition of a school and a public house in a conservation area.

The Ombudsman found serious deficiencies in the report that the planning committee had considered when taking the decision to demolish. It had been ‘signed off’ by four senior officers before being issued. The serious flaws included:

• incorporating the unattributed views of the consultants acting for the applicant in the section that purported to be the officers’ assessment;
• failure to fairly summarise the views of the Civic Society;
• uncritical acceptance of the applicant’s assertions that converting the building was not commercially viable, including a statement that was seriously misleading; and
• including reference to policy and guidance but failing to include sufficient information and evidence to enable the committee to properly form a view about whether the proposal complied with this policy, and failing to address the issue.

There were good reasons for the committee to approve the application and the Ombudsman could not say what would have been decided if the report had not been flawed. The injustice to the Civic Society is that its views and relevant issues were demonstrably not considered.

The Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice and recommends that the Council should:

• ensure that staff are properly trained in how to write reports on which Councillors will take decisions;
• instruct planning staff that all evidence submitted in support of planning applications should be critically examined and evaluated; and
• arrange for a senior representative of the Council to apologise, in person, to the Civic Society.

Date Published: 28/10/08