Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s property lease agreement with a private firm from over 10 years ago, its agreement to sell land to the firm, and a conflict of interest regarding that sale and its planning authority role. The lease issue is late, there is no good reason to investigate it now and investigation would not achieve a worthwhile outcome. There is not enough evidence of fault in the conflict issue to justify an investigation. There is insufficient significant personal injustice to Mr X caused by all matters complained of to warrant us investigating. We also cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants from his complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in the Council’s area. He complains the Council:
1. leased land and property to a private firm over 10 years ago under terms he considers were too favorable to that firm;
2. has agreed to sell the land to the firm if it gets planning permission for its development;
3. only got one land valuation when agreeing the sale price;
4. has a conflict of interest because the land price is dependent on the buyer receiving planning permission for it, when the Council would be the planning authority considering the application.
2. Mr X believes the land sale does not give the Council’s tax-payers value for money, which he considers contravenes Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972. He says his yearly tax bill may be higher as a result. Mr X wants the Council to put the land up for sale on the open market.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation; or
• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

My assessment

6. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the lease agreement the Council made with the firm over a decade ago. We expect people to complain about something they consider a council has done wrong within 12 months. The complaint on this issue is late. We note Mr X says he became aware of the lease in 2025. But the agreement would have been available many years ago. Had he been concerned about its terms and its effects, he should have made this complaint to the Council soon after it was issued, so he could bring any complaint to us in time. There are no good grounds for us to investigate this issue now because it is unlikely, given the passage of time since the agreement was made, that we could effectively investigate it and achieve any worthwhile outcome.
7. Furthermore, were we to investigate, we would not find the agreement’s terms and any impact they had on Mr X would amount to such a significant personal injustice to him to justify us investigating.
8. Mr X’s other complaints relate to how the Council has agreed a sale of the land with a private firm. Even if there has been fault in the way the Council has agreed the sale, we will not investigate. We could not say the Council will receive less money in total from the land than if it had taken a different route to sell it. In any event, the impact on Mr X if the Council has got less net revenue from the sale than it might have done does not cause a significant personal injustice to him. Any effect on his local taxation stemming from any differences in actual and possible sale prices, when taken as part of the Council’s much larger budget, would be negligible and not be such an amount to warrant us investigating. There is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to Mr X by the matters he has complained of to warrant us investigating.
9. Mr X considers there is a conflict of interest in the Council’s land price being dependent on the buyer receiving planning permission for the land, when the Council is the local planning authority. He is concerned the land could be sold below its value or the planning decision could be influenced by the land sale decision. The Council says the application will be considered against the usual policies, guidance and legislation and is a separate process to the land sale.
10. Mr X has not provided evidence of his allegations that the land sale process has affected the planning process or vice versa, and his concerns about an actual conflict of interest are speculative. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council on this issue to justify an investigation.
11. In addition, this matter causes insufficient significant personal injustice to Mr X to justify us investigating. As it is a party in both the land sale and planning processes, the organisation which has potential to be affected by this issue would be the private firm, not Mr X.
12. The complaint outcome Mr X wants is for the Council to sell the land on the open market. We cannot order councils to sell their assets in a particular way. That we cannot achieve the outcome Mr X seeks is a further reason why we will not investigate.

Back to top

Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• the lease agreement issue is late, there is no good reason to investigate it now and investigation would not achieve a worthwhile outcome; and
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault in the conflict-of-interest issue to justify an investigation; and
• there is insufficient significant personal injustice to Mr X caused by all matters complained of to warrant us investigating; and
• we cannot achieve the complaint outcome Mr X wants.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman