Summary: We cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s enforcement actions. Ms X used her right of appeal to the planning inspector and is required to comply with the enforcement notice.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council is taking enforcement action requiring her to remove high trellis fencing and plants grown into it. Ms X says the Council delayed acting and the fencing has been in place over 4 years and so enforcement action is unlawful. She says the Council did not act against a neighbour who took photographs of her property and breached her privacy.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a government minister. The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of a government minister. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b), as amended)
3. The Planning Inspector considers appeals about:

• delay – usually over eight weeks – by an authority in deciding an application for planning permission
• a decision to refuse planning permission
• conditions placed on planning permission
• a planning enforcement notice.

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered Ms X’s information and comments. I have read the planning inspector decision refusing her appeal against the Council’s enforcement notice.

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What I found

5. In February 2019, the Council issued an enforcement notice against Ms X requiring her to remove high fencing on her boundary put up without planning permission. The Council’s notice requires the fencing is demolished because it is excessive in size, harmful to visual amenity and the character of the neighbourhood.
6. On 24 March 2020, the planning inspector issued his decision dismissing Ms X’s appeal against the enforcement notice. The inspector says: ‘security and the possible loss of planting…are not sufficient justification…to allow retention of the excessively high trellis fencing’. The inspector dismissed Ms X’s argument that the fencing had been erected more than four years before the enforcement notice.
7. In February 2021, the Council wrote to Ms X saying the enforcement notice period of compliance ended on 24 June 2020. She is required to remove the full development.

Analysis

8. I cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. Ms X used her right of appeal to the planning inspector who dealt with her arguments (see paragraphs 2 and 6 above).
9. There is no other injustice relating to the planning case. Ms X is required to comply with the enforcement notice. The Council has allowed Ms X more time to do the work which is to her benefit.

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Final decision

10. The Ombudsman cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s enforcement actions. Ms X used her right of appeal to the planning inspector.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman