Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s planning decisions about a patio in a sports club’s grounds, installed next to his property in 2016. The Council’s decision not to accept an officer made planning errors, and to not give Mr X the apologies he wants, does not cause him such significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating. There is no different outcome, related to Mr X’s claimed injustice, now achievable by us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives next door to a sports club. In summer 2016, the club installed a patio without planning permission, near its boundary with Mr X. He complained to the Council in January 2020, saying the patio had required planning permission, but officers disagreed.
2. Mr X complains the Council incorrectly determined the club’s patio did not require planning permission and that it was covered by General Permitted Development Regulation (GPDR) rights.
3. Mr X says he is caused an injustice by the noise from the club patrons’ use of the patio. He wants the Council to apologise to him for:
• its error in deciding the patio did not require planning permission; and
• its error of assuming the patio was covered by GPDR rights.

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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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X, which included information produced by the Council, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. I invited Mr X to comment on my draft decision.

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My assessment

7. Mr X is not seeking Council enforcement action against the club as a complaint outcome. The outcomes he seeks are for the Council to agree with him that the patio required planning permission in 2016, was not covered by GPDR, and for officers to apologise to him. I recognise Mr X would like these outcomes. But he is not caused a sufficiently significant injustice by the Council’s decision to not accept its officer made planning errors, and to not give him the apologies he wants, to warrant us investigating.
8. Even if we were to investigate whether Mr X or the Council was correct about the planning and GPDR issues, we could not achieve any different or worthwhile outcome here. I say this because planning enforcement action is no longer possible. The club has demonstrated the patio has been in place for over four years, and the Council has issued it a Certificate of Lawful Development (CLEUD). So even if the patio had previously required permission, there is no planning enforcement action the Council can now take.
9. While Mr X recognises planning enforcement action is not possible, he says his injustice here is the noise from the club’s use of the patio. That claimed injustice stems from the events in 2016. There is no link between Mr X’s claimed injustice of noise from the patio and the complaint outcomes he seeks. We would only investigate a complaint where we consider there is a different outcome we should pursue. There is no such outcome here which is related to Mr X’s claimed noise injustice, because the planning position regarding the patio has been resolved by the CLEUD decision. In these circumstances, we will not investigate.
10. As the Council advised Mr X in 2020, if he experiences future noise from the club, he may wish to report these incidents to the Council’s Public Protection officers. It would be for those officers to consider any noise reports received and decide how the matter should proceed.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint because:
• the Council’s decision not to accept an officer made planning errors in 2016, and to not give Mr X the apologies he wants, does not cause him such significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating;
• there is no different outcome, related to Mr X’s claimed injustice, achievable by us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman