Summary: X complained about the Council’s handling of their reports of breaches of planning control on land near their home. X said the breaches adversely impacted their home and the Council’s lack of action caused distress. We found avoidable delay in the Council’s enforcement investigations which had caused X distress. The Council agreed to apologise to X and complete its enforcement investigations.

The complaint

1. X said the Council had failed to:

• deal with their reports of unauthorised development on land near their home in a timely manner; and
• respond to their requests for information about its enforcement investigations into the unauthorised development.

2. X also said the Council did not comply with its complaints procedure when they later complained about its failure to deal with the unauthorised development.
3. X said the Council’s failures caused stress and frustration and affected their enjoyment of their home. They wanted the Council to take any necessary enforcement action, provide information about its investigation, and pay compensation for distress. They also wanted the Council to improve its enforcement procedures.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way a council made its decision. If there was no fault in how the council made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. Where we find fault 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 cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal or a government minister or started court action about the matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6), 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)
8. When considering complaints, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
9. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

10. Xs’ complaint to us included concerns about their access to Council information. X had used their right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) about access to information. The ICO had issued a decision notice on Xs’ complaint. X continued to write to the Council and ICO about information matters. I could not investigate that part of Xs’ complaint about access to information as the ICO was acting as a tribunal when issuing its decision notice (see paragraph 6 of this statement).
11. X had reported several alleged breaches of planning control to the Council while the development near their home was under construction. We had already investigated a complaint from X about the Council’s response to some reported breaches. This earlier complaint, and the reported breaches it addressed, was not part of my investigation. Rather, my investigation concerned breaches reported by X and covered by the Council’s current open enforcement case (the Case). The Case had originally covered X’s concerns about trees on the development site. The Council had opened a separate enforcement case to investigate tree matters. My investigation also covered this open case, which I refer to as the ‘Tree Case’.
12. The Case and the Tree Case included some breaches reported more than 12 months before X first contacted us about this complaint. A complaint about those breaches was a late complaint (see paragraph 7). I found no good reason to exercise my discretion and investigate the complaint back to the date the Council opened the Case, including when X first reported concerns about trees. However, the issues raised by Xs’ complaint, including their tree concerns, were continuing. I therefore started my investigation from January 2024, which was 12 months before X first contacted us about this complaint. The end date for my investigation was November 2025.

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How I considered this complaint

13. I considered evidence provided by X and the Council and information about the development on the Council’s website. I also considered relevant law, policy and guidance. I shared Council information with X. I also gave X and the Council an opportunity to comment on my draft decision and considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

Permitted development

14. Not all development needs planning permission from the council. Certain developments are allowed if they meet relevant legal rules. Such development is called ‘permitted development’. (See the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 as amended)

Planning Enforcement

15. Councils have legal powers to take enforcement action if they find a breach of planning rules. Government guidance says, as enforcement action is discretionary, councils should act proportionately in responding to suspected breaches. (National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) paragraph 60)
16. As planning enforcement is discretionary, councils may decide to take informal action or not to act at all. Informal action might include negotiating improvements or asking for a planning application so the council can formally consider the planning issues relevant to the unauthorised development. Planning applications made after development takes place are ‘retrospective’ applications.
17. When deciding whether to enforce, councils should consider the likely impact of harm to the public and if they might grant approval on receiving an application for the unauthorised development.
18. The Council has a December 2024 Local Enforcement Plan (‘the Plan’), which reflects the NPPF guidance. The Plan says enforcement investigations “will take some time” as cases may be complex and raise many issues needing careful consideration. The Plan says enforcement officers will not provide regular updates on the status of investigations and people should not email asking for an update.
19. The Plan says enforcement cases receive a ‘Priority Rating’ depending on the breach and the degree of harm caused. The Council tries to investigate all reported breaches but its focus is Priority 1 cases. Priority 2 and 3 cases may take many months to investigate. Priority 3 cases do not have a wide impact but may affect the amenity of a single property. Priority 3 cases are also likely to remain stable and unlikely to result in severe or lasting harm to amenities. A site visit may not be necessary for a Priority 3 case depending on other available information, including photographs. (The Council found the breaches reported by X were Priority 3.)
20. The Plan says the Council will normally give those responsible for breaches an opportunity to resolve matters before taking formal enforcement action. The Plan also says people have a right to make a retrospective planning application. The Council will ask for a retrospective application where it is reasonably likely to grant the unauthorised development planning permission.
21. The Plan says the Council will issue a report on conclusion of an investigation. The report recommends the action, if any, the Council will take. The Council then tells the person reporting the breach of its decision and closes its enforcement case.

Complaints

22. The Council has long had a two stage corporate complaints procedure, which it updated on 1 April 2025. The pre-April 2025 procedure was in place when X complained. The Council encourages people to give it an opportunity to resolve an issue before making a formal complaint. Before April 2025, this informal resolution stage was part of the Council’s complaints procedure.
23. Under the pre-April 2025 procedure, the Council sent its Stage One response within 15 working days (or gave reasons for any delay and the expected response date). If not satisfied with the Stage One response, people had 28 working days to take their complaint to Stage Two. At Stage Two, the Council reviewed the Stage One investigation to check it was properly and fully carried out. A Stage Two response was sent within 15 working days. Any extension of time would be agreed with the person complaining or failing that by a Council senior manager.

Summary of what happened

24. The Council received several planning applications, some of which it granted planning permission, for development on land near Xs’ home (the Site). By January 2024, the development was well advanced and the Council had opened the Case to investigate breaches reported by X. The reported breaches alleged departures from the planning permissions for both building and external works. The Plan was not in place when X reported these breaches.
25. In opening the Case, the Council wrote to X giving them its reference number. The Council’s letter included information about the enforcement process. It said, where the Council found a breach of planning control, it would normally try to negotiate a solution with the person responsible for the breach. This might include inviting a retrospective planning application for unauthorised development. The Council’s letter also said it carried out enforcement investigations according to the planning merits of each case and not in date order of receipt. Existing cases might therefore be further deferred if it later received higher priority cases. This meant it could not give people definitive timescales for completing any investigation. The letter also said the Council would tell people reporting a breach of its enforcement decision and try to update them when something significant happened during the investigation. People reporting a breach could contact it for an update. But it was best to keep such contact to a minimum so it could focus on investigations. (The Council routinely attached similar information to emails and letters sent during its enforcement investigations.)
26. During 2024, X wrote to the Council about the Case. X said over a year had passed since the Council told them it would ‘monitor the development and take action if and when necessary’. X asked for an update. Six weeks later, receiving no update, X complained to the Council.
27. The Council’s complaint team responded saying the enforcement team would contact X. The following day, the Council’s enforcement team wrote to X, apologising for the delay. The Council also said it had allocated the Case to a new enforcement officer, who would soon visit the Site and then update them about next steps. (The Council said its attempt to visit the Site was unsuccessful.) There was no evidence the Council updated X.
28. Ten days later, X reported further alleged breaches on the Site. The Council told X it would add these new matters to the Case.
29. A few weeks later, X contacted the Council saying it had neither responded to their complaint nor updated them on its enforcement investigation. And, after a further month without any response, X wrote to the Council asking it to take their complaint to Stage Two.
30. The Council replied asking what concerns X still had as its enforcement team had responded about two months earlier (see paragraph 27). X said they had not received an update on the enforcement investigation or a response to their complaint. The Council then told X it would register their complaint at Stage One. X questioned this and again asked the Council to consider their complaint at Stage Two. After further correspondence, the Council confirmed it would respond to Xs’ complaint at Stage One.
31. The Council sent its Stage One response a week later, apologising and partially upholding the complaint. The Council said enforcement could take a long time and its enforcement officers focused on breaches with potential to cause irreparable planning harm. It would investigate the breaches reported by X but might need extended time to do so. The Council also said its enforcement team would update X in about a week.
32. The Council emailed X three days later saying it had allocated the Case to another enforcement officer (the Email). The Email said it had again tried, unsuccessfully, to access the Site and would make a further attempt before next updating X. (The further attempted visit was also unsuccessful.) The Email also said the enforcement investigation, including an update, could take months. X said they did not receive the Email. (I was satisfied on balance of probability the Email was sent, correctly addressed, to X. I also had no reason to doubt that X did not see the Email.) After waiting about seven weeks for an update, X contacted us. (We referred the complaint back to the Council to complete its complaints procedure.)
33. The Council sent X its Stage Two complaint response. It referred to its last update (see paragraph 32) and repeated that it prioritised enforcement cases, which meant first addressing those that could cause irreparable harm. The Council did not uphold the complaint.
34. Around the same time the Council again tried to visit the Site. It also received information from a third-party about the development. Over the following two months, the Council considered the alleged breaches of planning control. It found the development was largely in line with the planning permissions or was permitted development. The outstanding issues concerned built works that were not in line with the relevant planning permissions. The Council asked the developer to make a retrospective planning application for those works. But it did not consider formal enforcement action would be expedient if the developer did not apply for retrospective planning permission.
35. During these two months, the Council also contacted X and sent them a copy of the Email. The Council told X it was in contact with the developer and still investigating the reported breaches and would let them know when it decided the Case.
36. About five months later, the Council further reviewed the enforcement case, contacted the developer, and spoke to X. The Council said it told X it had asked for a retrospective planning application for some development on the Site and that other development did not breach planning control. The Council also said it told X it had opened the Tree Case to investigate their concerns about trees on the Site.
37. Meanwhile, X brought their complaint back to the Ombudsman.

What the Council told us

38. It did not immediately give the Case to an enforcement officer due to staff shortages and a backlog of cases. Rather, an enforcement officer was given the Case during the month X complained (see paragraphs 26 and 27). That enforcement officer left the Council’s employment soon afterwards. It passed the Case to another enforcement officer around the time of its Stage One complaint response (see paragraphs 31 and 32).
39. The Case and Tree Case remained open and, under the Plan, concerned Priority Three breaches. The Plan did not include timescales for enforcement investigations, which could take months and even years to complete. X knew it was waiting for a retrospective application for some built works. But it had found no reason to take formal enforcement action against the non-compliant works as they did not cause material or visual planning harm. It still wanted access to the Site but X also knew it did not consider other development on the Site breached planning control.
40. In response to Xs’ concerns about possible impacts of the development, it had received no reports it had, for example, led to landslips or flooding on nearby land, including Xs’ home. It had powers to deal with trees on private land. Generally, it used such powers only where there was an emergency or imminent risk to people or property.
41. The Council said it had one agency enforcement officer. It also had over 700 open enforcement cases and about 300 new reports needing assessment to receive their priority ranking.
42. On complaints handling, it had adopted a new complaints procedure in April 2025. The new procedure did not include the informal resolution stage that it recognised had caused confusion in handling Xs’ complaint. It also accepted the former procedure had caused confusion at Stage Two, which had been a ‘review’ stage. In not upholding Xs’ complaint at Stage Two, this meant it had not found any problem with the Stage One investigation. The Council said its new procedure should provide greater clarity about the process for complainants and help ensure complaints moved smoothly through both stages.

The Council’s update

43. The Council later provided an update after its planning enforcement and tree officers both visited the Site. The Council said the visits showed some matters reported by X did not breach planning control.
44. It found minor differences between some ‘as built’ work and relevant planning permissions. It did not consider the changes caused visual harm or adversely affected either the character of the area or neighbouring amenities. But, it had given the developer a further three months to make a retrospective planning application to regularise the changes. However, if it did not receive an application, given the lack of planning harm, it did not consider formal enforcement action would be expedient. It would therefore likely close the Case after about three months.
45. A separate visit to the Site had addressed Xs’ tree concerns. The Council said there were no legally protected trees on the Site, which was private land. It found no root severance or compaction and no sign of tree decline. Other vegetation along the shared boundary with Xs’ home remained alive. The Council said that trees could decline and die for various natural reasons. Following the visit, its officer had recommended closure of the Tree Case.

Consideration

Introduction

46. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. It is not our role to decide whether there has been a breach of planning control or if to take enforcement action. These are matters for councils. Instead, we look at the procedures a council has followed to reach a decision. If we consider it followed those procedures correctly, we cannot question whether any resulting decision is right or wrong, regardless of how strongly a complainant may disagree with it.
47. As a publicly funded body we also must be careful how we use our resources. We conduct proportionate investigations; completing them when we consider we have enough evidence to make a sound decision. This means we do not try to answer every single question a complainant may have about what a council did or how it acted.

Planning enforcement

48. The Council did not give the alleged breaches reported by X priority for investigation before it adopted the Plan. And, having adopted the Plan, the Council identified those matters as Priority 3 for enforcement purposes. It was for the Council to decide its enforcement priorities. It was also for the Council to consider the alleged breaches reported by X against its pre and post Plan published information about enforcement priorities. I had no grounds to question the Council’s decisions not to give priority to X’s reported breaches.
49. The Case for the alleged Priority 3 breaches had been open for over two years. While X did not report them all at the same time, the alleged breaches covered by the Case, and later, the Tree Case had been under investigation for a long time. But, as the Council pointed out, the Plan did not include timescales for enforcement investigations. And, before it adopted the Plan, the Council’s written information about its enforcement procedure also gave no timescales. However, without either statutory or express timescales, good administrative practice needs councils to make reasonable and timely decisions based on relevant matters. I therefore found avoidable delay in the Council’s enforcement investigations, which was fault. And such delay would have caused X uncertainty and frustration.
50. The Council, both before and since adopting the Plan, told people reporting breaches it would not routinely contact them during the enforcement investigation. I recognised X might find the lack of regular updates, even if they merely confirmed ‘no change’ in the status of the investigation, frustrating. However, the Council had tried to manage Xs’ expectations about there being little contact during its investigations. But, the Council did write to X and, on saying it would further update them, then sometimes failed to do so (see paragraphs 27 and 32). This was fault and would likely have caused X distress.
51. The Council said it had one agency officer to handle enforcement investigations. The number of cases and reported breaches clearly exceeded the capacity of a sole officer (see paragraph 41). Understandably, the Council’s focus would be on Priority 1 breaches. However, the evidence showed when, also understandably, X questioned progress on the Case, the Council acted. For example, it repeatedly but unsuccessfully tried to arrange a Site visit. But there was no evidence it had considered if it could use its legal powers to enter land. It also continued to await a retrospective application despite months passing since it had first asked for it. Such intermittent action took officer time while failing to progress the Case and the Tree Case to formal conclusion. With limited resources far outweighed by demand, such inconclusive action was an inefficient and ineffective use of time. It also added to both overall case delay and resulting frustration for those reporting a breach.
52. The Council sets its enforcement priorities and may manage peoples’ expectations about contact during an enforcement investigation. However, excessive delay in completing investigations will lead to fault. The Case and Tree Case included alleged breaches X had reported over two years earlier. And, despite their Priority Three status, the Council needed to compete its investigation without further avoidable delay. I therefore recognised the Council had now visited the Site and was working to a three-month timescale to close the Case. And it had already recommended closure of the Tree Case. (See paragraphs 43 to 45.)
53. I also recognised the impacts X said the alleged breaches had on them and their home. However, the Council had told X it was unlikely to take formal enforcement action. And it was now acting, within a set timescale, to close the Case and Tree Case. This would end the uncertainty and distress for X that had been caused by the Council’s avoidable delay.

Complaints handling

54. When X first complained to the Council, it referred the matter to its planning enforcement team for informal resolution. Such a step was covered by its pre-April 2025 complaints procedure. And, the enforcement team quickly contacted X. But the Council did not explain the informal resolution stage to X or what they should do if dissatisfied with the enforcement team’s response. This lack of clarity would have caused X avoidable distress. I therefore found fault causing injustice here. However, the Council had put matters right by later explaining the informal resolution stage to X when they asked to escalate their complaint to Stage Two. And I found no fault in the Council then considering Xs’ complaint at Stage One of its pre-April 2025 complaints procedure.
55. Having partially upheld Xs’ complaint at Stage One, the Council did not uphold their complaint at Stage Two. In responding to us, the Council explained that Stage Two reviewed a Stage One response. So, not upholding Xs’ complaint at Stage Two meant it was confirming its Stage One response was correct. However, this was not clear from the Council’s correspondence with X and its Stage One and Two responses appeared contradictory. This further lack of clarity was confusing and caused X further avoidable distress. I therefore found fault causing injustice here. I also thanked the Council for now recognising the lack of clarity in its communications with X.
56. The Council changed its complaints procedure in April 2025. While the Council still looks to informally resolve peoples’ concerns, the current procedure does not include an informal resolution stage. And, at stage two, a senior Council manager will investigate rather than review a complaint. I was therefore satisfied the Council had acted to prevent a recurrence of the problems X had faced in making their complaint.

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Action

57. As I found fault causing injustice, I considered our Guidance on Remedies. To put matters right in a proportionate, appropriate and reasonable way, the Council agreed the actions set out in paragraphs 58 to 60.
58. The Council will send X a written apology having considered what our Guidance on remedies says about effective apologies. The apology should address the uncertainty and frustration caused by its avoidable delay and failure to always keep its word to update X about the enforcement investigations. The apology should also address the distress caused by its lack of clarity in handling Xs’ complaint. The Council will send X the apology within 20 working days of this decision statement.
59. The Council will complete its enforcement investigations and close the Case and Tree Case. And, in line with the Plan, write to X explaining its enforcement decisions on closing the Case and Tree Case. The Council will complete these actions within four calendar months of this decision statement. But, if the Council needs more than four months to legally process any retrospective planning application, it will write to X and let them know the date it expects to decide the application.
60. The Council will refer this decision statement with the Ombudsman’s Focus Report: Planning Enforcement to its Place Committee, which is the strategic committee responsible for the policy and performance of the planning enforcement service. The referral’s purpose being for the Council to consider and decide what action it can take, and within what time, to improve its planning enforcement service. And the aim is to avoid excessive delay in enforcement investigations particularly for alleged breaches with Priority 2 and 3 status. The Place Committee’s consideration and decisions to be made within six months of this decision statement.
61. The Council also agreed to provide us with evidence it complied with the actions set out in paragraphs 58 to 60, including the outcome of the Place Committee’s consideration and decisions.

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Decision

62. I found fault causing injustice. The Council agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman