Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of planning matters relating to Mr X’s planning applications and a planning enforcement visit to a site he owns. This is because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation and because Mr X had appeal rights to the Planning Inspectorate which we would reasonably have expected him to have used.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council mishandled two separate planning matters and that this was the result of misconduct by a planning officer who was motivated other than by planning considerations and involved bad faith towards him personally. He says the first matter resulted in the unreasonable refusal of his planning application and the second matter, an unannounced planning enforcement visit to a site he owns, caused him distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b), as amended)
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’ which we call ‘fault’. 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)
5. 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
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant, including the Council’s response to the complaint.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies to the part of Mr X’s complaint which claims his first planning application was refused unreasonably due to an incorrect and ill-informed analysis of the application by an officer. As it was open to Mr X to have used his appeal rights to the Planning Inspectorate to challenge the Council’s decision, and as we would reasonably have expected him to have made use of this right, this matter falls outside our jurisdiction and will not be investigated.
9. Moreover, while Mr X says he had to spend time and money re-submitting the application and having it properly determined, the second application was not the same as the first and addressed reasons for refusal for the first application.
10. With regard to the unannounced enforcement visit which took place at a separate site owned by Mr X, the Council explained the reason for this was because it wanted to check if work had started at the site and did not want to give warning of this check. The Council was entitled to undertake such a visit without notice and there is no evidence to suggest fault affected its decision to do so.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation and because Mr X had appeal rights to the Planning Inspectorate which we would reasonably have expected him to have used.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman