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Bromsgrove District Council (07B13868)

Planning applications                 Maladministration causing injustice

22 June 2009

There were faults in the way Bromsgrove District Council granted planning permission for an affordable housing development in the Green Belt. The Ombudsman said “I do not believe that they gave the application the careful consideration that was due to it, especially when officer advice was clear that permission should have been refused.”

‘Mr Miller’ (not his real name for legal reasons) complained on behalf of a residents’ committee that the Council did not properly consider an application for 20 affordable housing development units in the Green Belt, adjacent to a hamlet of around 60 homes.

Local residents submitted a petition opposing the development to a local councillor, but the councillor did not pass this to the Council.

To demonstrate local need for affordable housing, the applicant submitted a survey of housing need in the wider parish, some data about average house prices and incomes in the area, and information from the Council’s housing register.

The planning manager recommended that the Council refuse the application because the development did not meet local or national planning policy. In particular, the officer considered that:

  • the development was not small scale, suitable for its location or sustainable and that the applicant had not demonstrated a local housing need;
  • the development was inappropriate in the Green Belt and there were no special circumstances that outweighed the harm caused to it; and
  • more information was needed about harm to potential protected wildlife habitats and the loss of protected trees.

Members approved the development against the officer’s recommendation. The Ombudsman found that council members:

  • failed to distinguish between housing need and housing demand;
  • took an irrelevant factor into account in assessing harm to the Green Belt;
  • failed to give adequate consideration to officer advice about protected tree cover, and to Natural England’s advice about possible habitats for protected species on the site; and
  • failed to give adequate reasons for approving the application.

The Ombudsman concluded that this development was open to members to approve, but Mr Miller was left with a degree of understandable outrage that the Council should have handled matters better, and had to take time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.

Remedy

The Ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice and recommended that the Council should pay Mr Miller £1,000.

LGO satisfied with Council's response: 17 September 2009

Date Updated: 10/12/09