Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to take enforcement action regarding his neighbour’s new windows, or request the neighbour to submit a retrospective planning application for the works. There is not enough evidence of Council fault in its decision-making process to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in a block of flats. One of his neighbours replaced their windows.
2. Mr X complains the Council has wrongly decided not to require the neighbour to apply for retrospective planning permission for the windows, and not to take enforcement action.
3. Mr X considers the new windows materially affect the building’s appearance. He says the lack of a planning application means local residents have not had the opportunity to comment on the windows. He is concerned they will set an unhelpful precedent and mean other residents will install windows different from the original design. Mr X wants the Council to serve an enforcement notice on the neighbour or ask them to submit a retrospective planning application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
5. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information from Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Planning authorities can take enforcement action where there has been a breach of planning control. It is for the council to decide if there has been a breach of planning control and if it is expedient to take further action. National government guidance to planning authorities stresses the importance of effective enforcement action to maintain public confidence in the planning system but says councils should act proportionately.
8. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body against councils’ planning or enforcement decisions. Instead, we consider if there was fault with how its decisions were made.
9. Once Mr X raised his concerns about the new windows, the Council considered the information provided. This included photographs showing the windows next to the original ones from when the flats were built. The Council took the view that the overall design of the new windows was not so different from the original ones to have a material effect on the building, and that they were not harmful to the street scene. Based on their assessment, officers decided it would not be expedient to take enforcement action, nor necessary to request a retrospective planning application from the neighbour to regularise the work.
10. I understand Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision not to take formal action. But the Council was entitled to apply its professional judgement here. There is not enough evidence that the Council’s decision-making process involved fault to justify an investigation. It is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman