Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s enforcement responses to his reports of planning breaches on a development site. The site is about a mile away from Mr X’s property. Even if there was Council fault in its enforcement decisions, they have not caused a significant personal injustice to Mr X which would justify us investigating. The Council has apologised for delays in updating Mr X on the matter, and in its complaint responses, which is the appropriate outcome for these parts of the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council has:
1. failed to take action in response to reports of breaches of planning permission conditions at a development site;
2. not kept him updated on its enforcement actions;
3. delayed in responding to his complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X, which included the Council’s complaint responses. I also consulted online maps and considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. Mr X’s complaints about the developer not complying with planning conditions relate to a site which is about a mile away from his property. So even if there has been fault by the Council in its enforcement actions here, that fault has not caused a significant personal injustice to Mr X which would warrant us investigating. I realise Mr X may be annoyed by the developer’s non-compliance. But that is not a sufficient injustice to him for us to investigate.
5. The Council upheld the parts of Mr X’s complaint about lack of updates on its enforcement actions, and delays in responding to his complaint. Officers accepted these were fault and have apologised to him. An apology is the outcome we would have recommended the Council to provide had we investigated the core enforcement issues. So there is no further outcome for us to pursue on these parts of the matter which would justify us investigating.

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Final decision

6. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:

• there is not enough evidence of the Council’s enforcement decisions, actions or inactions, causing Mr X such significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating;
• the Council has apologised for not keeping Mr X update on the enforcement matter, and for delays in the complaint responses, and there is no further outcome to be achieved by us investigating these parts of the complaint.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman