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Planning enforcement Maladministration causing injustice
15 April 2008
Caradon District Council failed to notify a man of his neighbour’s planning application that would regularise breaches of planning consent at a converted barn. The Ombudsman finds that the Council also delayed in deciding the application, and did insufficient monitoring of an alleged breach of planning consent at site. ‘Mr Lee’ (not his real name for legal reasons) owns a former farm in a rural area and has almost completed building a new dwelling to replace the old farmhouse. He had sold part of the land including an old barn, and his new neighbour obtained permission to convert the barn into a dwelling. After this was built, a visiting Councillor noted that there were breaches of the planning consent, and the Council made a number of attempts to get the owner to make changes to comply with the consent, without issuing formal enforcement notices. Eventually, he submitted a retrospective application to formalise the remaining breaches. The Ombudsman found that the Council had failed to notify Mr Lee of the planning application although his property adjoins the site. He also found that the Council had failed to determine the application within the permitted time limit without valid reasons, and it had failed to inform Mr Lee or his MP of the progress of the application. Although Mr Lee also complained about the Council’s handling of enforcement issues, the Ombudsman criticised only one aspect – that the Council failed to carry out sufficient monitoring between August and November 2006 when Mr Lee believed that commercial paint spraying was being carried out at the site. The Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice and recommends the Council to:
Date Updated: 14/10/08
are in .pdf format. To view these files you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. It can be downloaded below free of charge. Click To Download