Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take planning enforcement action against a development close to Mr X’s home in relation to waste management. This is because the complaint is a late complaint and so falls outside our jurisdiction due to the passage of time.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s failure to take enforcement action against a development close to his own which has lacked an effective waste management strategy since its completion in 2016.

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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. 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

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council, including its response to the complaint.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X complains the development has never had a proper waste management strategy as required by the permission granted for it and that this has impacted on his own property. As we would reasonably have expected Mr X to have complained to us about this matter sooner, the restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies. The complaint is a late complaint due to the passage of time and so falls outside our jurisdiction.
7. Moreover, Mr X says the Council can still take enforcement for a planning breach in relation to the lack of an effective waste management strategy and that it has ten years in which to do so. However, in determining an application related to the siting of waste bins at the site in question in 2022, the Council explained the lack of compliance with the waste management condition from the original planning permission from 2014 was immune from enforcement action due to the passage of four years since the completion of the development. The relevant time limit from immunity here is four years and not the ten years Mr X has quoted which applies in other, different situations to that which exists here.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is a late complaint and so falls outside our jurisdiction due to the passage of time.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman