Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to rectify his neighbour’s plans because the complaint is late and the issue does not cause Mr X significant injustice. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to take planning enforcement action because there is not enough evidence of fault and it is unlikely we could achieve any worthwhile outcome for him.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council failed to correct an issue with the plans his neighbour submitted as part of their planning application. He also complains the neighbour has breached the planning permission by failing to adhere to the approved plans but the Council has refused to take formal enforcement action to address the breach.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 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 could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Inaccurate plans

6. Mr X raised his concerns about the accuracy of his neighbour’s plans in September 2022 and received a final response to his complaint in January 2023 which referred him to us. But Mr X did not bring this complaint to us until December 2023 and it is therefore late. I have seen no good reasons for the delay in complaining to us and I will not therefore exercise my discretion to investigate the issue further.
7. It is however unlikely we would have investigated this issue even if Mr X had raised it in-time. This is because the issue does not cause Mr X significant injustice. Mr X is concerned about inaccurate plans being in the public domain which may impact on any future sale of his property but the plans are not definitive; the relevant plans for any house purchase are those held by the Land Registry.

Planning enforcement issue

8. Mr X believes his neighbour has built their development in the wrong location. He has provided evidence in support of his assertion which shows the development is not the correct distance from features on properties outside the application site.
9. The Council says it has visited the site several times and taken its own measurements which confirm the development is in the right place. It has therefore explained there is no basis for enforcement action as there is no breach of planning control. It has suggested the features Mr X has used for his calculations are not shown accurately in the plans but because they fall outside the application site this does not having any bearing on its decision to grant planning permission.
10. It is not for us to visit the site and take our own measurements to confirm if the development has been built in the correct location. We can only look at the way the Council has considered Mr X’s reports and it has clearly investigated and responded to them and there is not enough evidence of fault in its actions to warrant further investigation. It is also unlikely further investigation would lead to a different outcome or achieve anything more for Mr X.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because Mr X’s concerns about the accuracy of his neighbour’s plans is late and there is not enough evidence of fault in relation to his complaint about the Council’s failure to take planning enforcement action.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman