Summary: There was fault by the Council, because of delays in its complaint handling and in its decision to open a planning enforcement investigation. The Council has agreed to apologise for this. However, a delay in sending formal confirmation of the enforcement investigation did not represent an injustice to the complainant; and we have discontinued our investigation, about the way the Council dealt with alleged breaches of a construction management plan, because we cannot make a meaningful finding.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainants as Mr W and Mr D.
2. Mr W and Mr D complain about the Council’s handling of planning enforcement matters, with regard to a development near their properties.
3. They say the Council:

• delayed responding to Mr W’s complaint about this;
• did not write to Mr W to confirm it had opened an enforcement case in November 2024, following his report;
• did not properly consider several potential enforcement issues as part of its investigation, including excavation work, the layout of the site and placement of bins; and
• did not adequately address that construction vehicles were being parked off site, in breach of the construction management plan (CMP).

4. Although this is a joint complaint between Mr W and Mr D, Mr W has acted as lead complainant throughout, and for the sake of simplicity I will simply refer to him in sections of this decision statement.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
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)
7. 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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What I have and have not investigated

8. Mr W’s complaint includes several matters I have not investigated. This is either because they are late, or because there would be no worthwhile outcome to an investigation and it would therefore be disproportionate to do so.
9. Again, for the sake of simplicity, I will not detail or refer to those matters in this decision statement.
10. I will also clarify at this point that my investigation will only cover events up to the point Mr W completed the Council’s complaint process in January 2025.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered evidence provided by Mr W and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.

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What I found

Mr W’s and Mr D’s complaint

12. The following will provide a summary of the key events relevant to this complaint. It is not intended to be a detailed chronology of everything that happened.
13. Mr W and Mr D live in a small village. In 2014, the Council granted planning permission for the construction of a new residential property, on a small plot of undeveloped land near their properties. The planning permission included several conditions, one of which was a CMP restricting the parking of construction vehicles on the highway, to avoid blocking it.
14. At the date of writing this development remains incomplete.
15. After a series of correspondence in 2024 about alleged breaches of planning permission, Mr W submitted a stage 1 complaint to the Council in August. He then approached the Ombudsman in October, having received no response. As we considered Mr W’s complaint premature for investigation by us, we referred it back to the Council at that point.
16. The Council provided a stage 1 response to Mr W in November. It acknowledged and apologised for the delay in registering and responding to his complaint, and confirmed it had opened an enforcement investigation. The Council said this would seek to address the alleged breaches Mr W had raised.
17. The Council also said it would write to the developer to remind him of his obligations under the CMP, with regard to the parking of construction vehicles on the road outside the development site. It asked Mr W to provide dates and times when this had happened.
18. After Mr W escalated his complaint to stage 2, the Council provided a further response in January 2025. It acknowledged again Mr W had originally sought to register a complaint in April, and that the Council had failed to do this or to respond in time. The Council also acknowledged it had not given Mr W written confirmation that it had opened an enforcement investigation in November, and apologised for this.
19. The Council said it was aware the developer had undertaken additional excavation, but said it was satisfied this was generally in accordance with the planning permission. However, it said changes to the layout of the stie, with particular the placement of the bin store, was subject to the ongoing enforcement investigation.
20. It also said it was aware the developer had parked vehicles on the highway, and that this contravened the CMP. The Council said it had written to the developer to remind him of his obligations, and that it was satisfied it should not take further action at this time. It reminded Mr W it had asked him to provide further details in the event of further breaches of the plan.
21. In February, Mr W approached the Ombudsman again.

Legislative background

22. Councils can take enforcement action if they find a breach of planning rules. However, councils should not take enforcement action just because there has been a breach of planning control.
23. Planning enforcement is discretionary and formal action should happen only when it would be a proportionate response to the breach. When deciding whether to enforce, councils should consider the likely impact of harm to the public and whether they might grant approval if they were to receive an application for the development or use.
24. As planning enforcement action is discretionary, councils may decide to take informal action or not to act at all. Informal action might include negotiating improvements, seeking an assurance or undertaking, or requesting submission of a planning application so they can formally consider the issues.
25. Government guidance says: “Effective enforcement is important as a means of maintaining public confidence in the planning system. Enforcement action is discretionary, and local planning authorities should act proportionately in responding to suspected breaches of planning control.” (National Planning Policy Framework December 2024, paragraph 60)

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Analysis

26. I will address each element of the complaint in turn.
27. First though, I will explain it is the Ombudsman’s role to review the way councils have made their decisions. We may criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant information, or failed to act with due promptness. We call this ‘administrative fault’ and, where we find it, we can consider what impact it had and whether the council should take steps to address this.
28. However, we do not provide a right of appeal against a council’s decisions, and we do not make operational or policy decisions on councils’ behalf. If we find a council has acted without fault, therefore, we cannot criticise it, even if someone disagrees strongly with its decisions.

Delay in responding to complaint

29. Mr W says he submitted three letters of complaint earlier in 2024. Although I can see Mr W’s earlier letters are specifically labelled as formal complaints, I also note he sent them direct to a senior officer in the Council’s planning team, rather than to the complaints team, as the Council’s website directs.
30. The Council responded to these letters on 1 August. This letter is entitled “Stage One Response”, and refers to Mr W’s correspondence as complaints in its subject line, but it does not follow the normal format for a formal complaint response. It appears this letter had not been written and sent in accordance with the Council’s complaints handling procedure.
31. Mr W then submitted a formal complaint through the proper channels on 16 August, but referred to this as a ‘stage 1’ complaint. Having received no response by October, Mr W approached us. But, when we contacted the Council, it told us it had not registered any formal complaint from Mr W yet.
32. The Council then finally sent Mr W a ‘proper’ stage 1 response on 6 November. The Council’s complaints policy is to respond to a stage 1 complaint within 10 working days in most cases, which means it should have sent this response by 30 August, more than two months earlier.
33. I cannot explain how exactly all this confusion arose, but either way, there was clear fault by the Council, which triggered a subsequent delay in its response. This represents an injustice to Mr W in the frustration it caused him. Although I appreciate the Council has apologised for this in the course of its subsequent complaint responses, I consider it significant enough that a separate, formal letter of apology about the poor complaint handling would be the proper way to remedy this.
34. I find fault causing injustice in this element of Mr W’s complaint.

Failure to confirm opening of enforcement investigation

35. The Council’s stage 1 response of November informed Mr W it had opened an enforcement investigation into the alleged breaches of planning permission. It also said the Council would send Mr W a separate confirmation letter to this effect. However, it appears the Council then overlooked this, and did not send this letter to Mr W until January. The Council has accepted it was at fault for this.
36. While I agree this was fault, I do not consider this represents an injustice to Mr W. Either way, the Council had already confirmed it was investigating the alleged breaches, and so the separate confirmation letter was simply a formality in this instance.
37. I find fault which did not cause injustice in this element of Mr W’s complaint.

Failure to properly consider enforcement investigation

38. As I have noted, planning enforcement is a discretionary power. This means that, even where there is a clear breach of planning permission, a council should only take enforcement action where it considers it proportionate to do so. Whether it is proportionate in any particular instance is for the relevant council to decide on a case-by-case basis.
39. In this case, I consider the Council has explained clearly why it does not consider the excavation work carried out by the developer to be a significant matter. I appreciate Mr W does not share this view, but it is a decision the Council was entitled to make, and it is not for me to express my own opinion about this.
40. In terms of the layout of the site, including the placement of the bin store, the Council decided to address this by inviting the developer to submit a new planning application. This is a normal part of the planning enforcement process and, again, a decision the Council was entitled to make.
41. I understand this planning application remains undecided, despite having been submitted approximately six months ago, and I acknowledge this is a significant length of time for the decision to remain pending. However, this issue did not arise until after Mr W’s complaint, and so it post-dates the period my investigation is able to cover.
42. I am therefore satisfied there is no evidence of fault in the way the Council has undertaken the enforcement investigation. However, I am conscious these were matters Mr W raised in his correspondence with the Council from earlier in 2024; and in fact the Council’s initial ‘stage 1’ response letter of 1 August said it would open a new enforcement investigation at that point. It is evident this did not happen until November.
43. Therefore, while I have no criticism of the decisions the Council has made in the course of its investigation, I do consider there was a delay in opening the investigation and that this represents fault.
44. Given the ongoing nature of the investigation, I cannot speculate what material difference this delay has caused. Again though, I consider it has caused frustration to Mr W, and recognition of this should also form part of the apology letter I have recommended the Council write.
45. I find fault causing injustice in this element of Mr W’s complaint.

Failure to address breaches of CMP

46. Mr W says the developer has consistently parked vehicles on the highway outside the development site, in breach of the CMP. This was one of the various points he raised in his correspondence earlier in 2024.
47. In the Council’s ‘stage 1’ response letter of 1 August, it said it would write to the developer to remind him of his obligations, but that it would not take any further action at this time. The Council asked Mr W to report the details of any new breaches for it to review.
48. In the narrow sense, this was again a decision the Council was entitled to make. As a condition on the original planning permission, a breach of the CMP is a potential enforcement matter, but it is open to the Council to approach the developer informally if it considers it appropriate.
49. However, I am concerned there is some confusion in the Council’s handling of this.
50. First, despite Mr W raising this issue again in his subsequent stage 1 and 2 complaints, the Council’s response was substantively the same each time – that it would write to the developer, and that Mr W should report any further breaches. It does not appear the Council gave any consideration to escalating the matter beyond its initial informal approach.
51. Second, more recently, Mr W has submitted a new complaint to the Council, which the Council has now responded to at both stages. Although this new complaint does not fall into my investigation, I note the following comment from the Council’s stage 2 response:

“Neither is there any evidence that [the enforcement case officer] attempted to deflect you from raising the matter again or that he failed to log a new breach of the terms of the [CMP]. This is an ongoing planning enforcement case which was originally registered on 6 November 2024.”

52. But the Council’s earlier correspondence with Mr W appears to demonstrate it was not dealing with the CMP issue as part of the November enforcement case, but as a separate, informal matter. I cannot reconcile these conflicting statements with the evidence available to me. Consequently, it is difficult for me to understand precisely how the Council has dealt with this issue, and what status is currently has.
53. Equally though, I am not persuaded there is much value in further investigation of this point here. As I have said, the Council was entitled to decide to treat the matter informally, so this, in itself, is not fault. While it appears confusing the Council went on to repeat its initial response to this element of Mr W’s complaint in the stage 1 and 2 responses of November and January, I have not seen evidence Mr W actually gave the Council any precise dates and times of breaches of the CMP, which is what it asked him for; and so I cannot say the Council failed to act on this.
54. More critically, Mr W’s more recent complaint to the Council makes a specific allegation it has failed to register a specific breach, but as I have said, this is not something I can consider here. I am limited to investigating the matter only up to the point where Mr W’s first complaint completed the Council’s process.
55. Taking these points together, I am not satisfied I can make a meaningful finding on this element of Mr W’s complaint, given the narrow time period I can look at. It is possible this is something we could explore in more detail should Mr W make a second complaint to the Ombudsman, concerning the more recent events; but, for now, I do not consider it would be proportionate to continue my investigation.
56. I have discontinued my investigation of this element of Mr W’s complaint.

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Action

57. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council has agreed to write a formal letter of apology to Mr W and Mr D, reflecting on its poor complaint handling, and for the delay in opening the enforcement investigation in 2024.
58. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
59. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

60. I find fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman