Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with two change-of-use planning applications from her neighbour to create a campsite. Her complaints about the Council not enforcing a condition on the first permission to do works to the site’s boundaries, and her complaint about the Council not including this condition in the second permission, are both late. There are no good reasons for us to investigate them now. Even if Mrs X’s complaint about the second permission was in time, there is not enough evidence of fault to have warranted us investigating and we could not have achieved the complaint outcomes she seeks.

The complaint

1. Mrs X and her family live next door to land whose owners sought and received two planning permissions for change-of-use to allow them to install a camp site. She complains the Council:
1. failed to enforce for several years boundary treatment and site screening conditions placed on the first planning application;
2. granted the second permission for different structures on previously unauthorised parts of the site without a boundary treatment condition;
3. failed to visit her to assess the impacts of the development from her property.
2. Mrs X says the matter has caused upset and conflict with the planning applicant neighbours. She says that for six months each year she is worried people will come into her garden. Mrs X says there is noise from the site and she and her family can see people and cars going to and from the site when in the garden, reducing their privacy. She says the impact of the matter has caused extreme stress, affected her family’s wellbeing and mental health and they feel let down and demoralised.
3. Mrs X wants the Council to install more fencing and planting to help with the noise, privacy and safety issues. She also wants the Council to visit them so they can see the issues her family is facing.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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)
5. 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
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

6. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information from Mrs X, relevant online planning documents and maps, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. We expect complainants to come to us within 12 months of them being aware of the matter about which they are complaining. We will only investigate a late complaint if we consider there are good reasons to do so. Mrs X complained to us in February 2024.
9. The Council granted the neighbour’s first permission in late 2019. Mrs X has known about and the Council not taking action to enforce the boundary treatment condition since 2020 onwards, so this part of her complaint is late. There are no good reasons for us to investigate this issue now as the planning situation has moved on since the first permission. The second permission has superseded the first one regarding the conditions and planning controls on the site. We could not now require the Council to consider enforcement action for a planning condition which no longer applies as an outcome of an investigation.
10. The Council granted the second planning permission for the site, without a further boundary treatment condition, in late 2022. Mrs X emailed the Council in the first week of 2023 to advise she had seen their planning decision, so was aware of the decision by that date at the latest. The Council dealt with her complaint and sent Mrs X its final response in September 2023. This gave sufficient time to bring the matter to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter, by early January 2024. So this part of the complaint is also late.
11. Even if we were to exercise discretion and treat the complaint about the second permission as having been raised with us in time, we would not have investigated for other reasons.
12. We are not an appeal body. We may only criticise a council’s decision where there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process and but for that fault officers would have made a different decision. So we consider the processes councils have followed to make decisions. We cannot replace a council’s decision with our own or someone else’s opinion if the decision has been reached after following proper process.
13. Mrs X says the Council did not properly consider the impacts of the development on her property when granting the 2022 permission. The planning officer’s report summarises Mrs X’s objections when considering the proposed development’s impact on residential amenity. They noted the second application marked a reduction in camping plots compared to the first permission, reducing the site’s residential amenity impacts.
14. The Council gathered relevant information to determine there were insufficient planning harm grounds to warrant a refusal. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process. We realise Mrs X disagrees with the planning decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
15. Mrs X also says the Council did not visit her property when making their assessments. It is for officers to decide whether such a visit is necessary when gathering the relevant information required to determine possible planning harms. Officers visited the development site and considered this visit was sufficient to enable them to assess the impacts of the proposed development on neighbouring properties. We recognise Mrs X would have preferred the Council to visit her property. But it is not fault for a council not to visit a particular location when determining an application.
16. We note Mrs X wants the Council to install more fencing and planting at the site and for officers to visit her property. We cannot order councils to install boundary treatments on someone’s property, nor in turn order its owners to do so. We also cannot order councils to make visits, and would not do so where the related planning process has ended because it would not alter that process’s result. That we could not have achieved the outcomes Mrs X seeks is a further reason why we would not investigate these late complaints.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• the complaints about enforcement of the first permission’s planning condition and the outcome of the second permission are both late and there are no good reasons for us to investigate them now; and
• even if the complaint about the second permission was in time, there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation; and
• we could not achieve the outcomes she seeks from her complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman