Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning enforcement matter. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council affecting its decisions.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, complains the Council has failed to deal with several breaches of planning control by her neighbour over three years. She says the breaches have resulted in loss of privacy to her property and garden and loss of light.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
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 Ms X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We have previously investigated a related complaint from Ms X but at the time the Council had not yet completed its investigation into the alleged breaches of planning control; we did not therefore make any decision on the Council’s handling of the matter.
7. Ms X complained again recently because the Council had not taken any formal enforcement action against her neighbour and had not responded to her correspondence on the matter. I have not therefore treated her complaint as ‘late’.
8. However, the Council has confirmed it decided not to take any formal enforcement action against Ms X's neighbour and it has explained the reasons for this, which are that the issues raised by Ms X either did not amount to breaches of planning control or would not be ‘expedient’ to pursue through formal action.
9. While I appreciate Ms X disagrees with the Council’s decisions they were decisions the Council was entitled to make. They are supported by clear rationale and I have seen no basis for us to question them.
10. It does appear the Council took some time to make its decisions and did not respond to Ms X’s correspondence at certain times. But I have seen nothing to show these issues themselves caused significant enough injustice to warrant further investigation. This is because we could not say any delay or failure by the Council to respond to Ms X affected the outcome of its investigation or, therefore, that it delayed any formal action.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman