Summary: Mr F complained about the Council’s handling of reports of breaches of planning control at a development near his home since 2022. There was fault in complaint handling which caused Mr F some time and trouble. The Council has already apologised for this and I am satisfied that is sufficient to remedy the injustice caused. We have not found fault in the way the Council dealt with the reports of breaches or other elements of Mr F’s complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr F complained about the Council’s handling of his reports of breaches of planning control at a development near his home since 2022. He says the Council:
• Failed to follow its policies and procedures, reply to him, or take enforcement action.
• Misled local MPs.
• Showed bias towards the developer.
• Overturned decisions made by the Planning Inspector in relation to a footpath for pedestrian safety.
2. Mr F says this has caused significant distress, affecting his and his wife’s wellbeing.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 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)
4. 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)
5. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end, an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
6. 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.
7. We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. We cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as the Planning Inspectorate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34(1), as amended)
8. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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

9. I have investigated events since April 2024. This is because Mr F came to us in March 2025 and, as set out in paragraph 4, this makes complaints about events prior to April 2024 late. There are no grounds to exercise discretion to investigate a late complaint as I have seen no good reasons why Mr F did not complain to us sooner.
10. Mr F complains the Council did not respond to reports of possible planning breaches. He and other residents have made over 200 of these since 2022. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We have limited resources and must investigate complaints in a proportionate manner, focusing on general themes and issues, rather than providing a response to every individual issue raised in a complaint. It would not be proportionate for me to investigate whether the Council had acknowledged every report of an alleged planning breach in line with its local enforcement plan.
11. In addition, we do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained. We will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant (Mr F) has been personally impacted by suffering serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of fault. Mr F does not live adjacent to the development site which means his amenity is not affected by issues such as the heights of the houses or size of the gardens. He therefore would not be caused significant injustice by any fault in the handling of those alleged breaches.
12. As set out in paragraph 5, I have therefore decided not to investigate every alleged planning breach detailed by Mr F’s April 2024 report to the Council. Instead I have considered how the Council responded to that report and his subsequent complaint in December 2024.

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How I considered this complaint

13. I considered the information Mr F sent and the Council’s response to my enquiries.
14. Mr F and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

Planning control

15. The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives local planning authorities (councils) the power to decide if planning applications should be approved, refused or approved subject to planning conditions. Applicants can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate about a decision to refuse planning permission.
16. If the Planning Inspectorate upholds the appeal and grants planning permission, the developer has the same rights to apply to make amendments to the permission as they would if the permission had been granted by the council. Developers may apply to the council to vary or remove a planning condition under section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It is for the council to consider this application and decide whether to grant permission unconditionally or subject to different conditions, or to refuse the application if they decide that the original condition(s) should continue.

Planning enforcement

17. Councils can take enforcement action if they find a breach of planning control, that is:
• The carrying out of development without the required planning permission; or
• Failing to comply with any condition or limitation subject to which planning permission has been granted.
18. Councils may take enforcement action when it is ‘expedient’ to do so, they should not take enforcement action just because there has been a breach of planning control. Planning enforcement is discretionary and formal action should happen only when it would be a proportionate response to the breach. (National Planning Policy Framework December 2024, paragraph 60)
19. 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. It is for the council to decide whether it is expedient to take action and what action (if any) to take.
20. When deciding whether to enforce, councils should consider whether the breach unacceptably harms public amenity, the need to achieve a balance between protecting amenity and permitting development which is acceptable, and whether they might grant approval if they were to receive an application for the development or use.
21. The Council’s local enforcement plan says it may visit the site within 20 working days of an alleged breach being reported, to establish whether a breach of planning control has occurred. The Council will strive to keep complainants informed of progress by acknowledging receipt within seven working days and giving an update when the case is closed. The policy says repeated requests for updates outside of these times are unlikely to be responded to. The Council aims to make a decision within three months as to whether to take enforcement action.

Construction management conditions

22. Councils often impose construction management planning conditions on approvals for major developments. Typically, these conditions are aimed at reducing the impact and disruption caused by:
• long working hours on construction sites;
• nuisance from noise, dust, smoke and vibration; and
• traffic from construction vehicles.
23. While construction management conditions may help lessen the harmful impact of major development, they cannot ensure it is avoided entirely. To justify formal enforcement action for this type of condition, councils usually need evidence of persistent breach of planning controls that cause demonstrable harm to the public.

The Council’s complaint procedures

24. The Council has a two-stage complaint process and aims to respond within 20 working days.
25. The Council’s customer complaints guidance says it will use the complaints process to investigate allegations the Council:
• Failed to do something it should have done or promised to do.
• Behaved unfairly, discourteously, and/or discriminatory.
• Did not provide a service to a reasonable standard.
• Did not respond to a service request or correspondence within stated timescales.
26. The Council does not use the complaints process to investigate where the Council has taken action that it has a duty to perform, for example enforcement. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code says there is a difference between a complaint about the standard of service and a service request (such as a request to investigate an alleged planning breach).

What happened

27. Mr F lives close to a site where a housing development is being built. Planning permission for the development was granted on appeal.
28. The conditions included a construction management plan which set out the working hours and vehicle movements allowed due to access and space restrictions. These included that heavy vehicles should not access the site between 8.30am and 9.30am, vehicles should not park on adjoining roads whilst awaiting access to the site and there should be no manoeuvring, reversing or turning off site. The preferred vehicle route went past Mr F’s home.
29. In 2022, the developer applied to the Council to vary some conditions. The application included a drawing which removed a footpath.
30. After construction started, in March 2023 Mr F and his wife met with a Council planning enforcement officer. Mr F says the officer agreed for them to act on behalf of local residents to report alleged planning breaches and breaches of the construction management plan to the Council. Mr F has sent evidence that over 200 reports were made from 2022 to October 2024.
31. In April 2024, senior council officers visited the site and met with Mr F and others. Following this Mr F submitted a report to the Council setting out concerns and possible breaches from 2022 to summer 2023. These included problems caused by the manoeuvring and parking of construction and delivery vehicles, a lack of a wheel wash, a lack of communication with local residents, the behaviour of the workers, and the sizes and heights of the houses and gardens.
32. The Council did not register this correspondence as a complaint. Mr F asked the Council for a response in May and June, so the Council logged it as a complaint on 13 June 2024 and sent a stage one response on 5 July. The response included a report from an enforcement officer addressing issues raised in Mr F’s report. The Council’s complaint response said:
• It had found no deviation from approved plans in relation to the gardens.
• Accurate measurements of the heights and ground levels could not be taken until the development was completed.
• Issues such as lighting, overbearing and flood risk had been considered during the planning appeal and could not be reassessed retrospectively.
• All reports of possible planning breaches had been acknowledged and investigated.
• Council officers and inspectors had visited the site multiple times, worked with the developer to rectify concerns and had identified no breaches of planning control.
• Concerns about the construction management plan not being followed had been raised with the developer and site manager and rectified.
• Environmental health had investigated possible noise nuisance and had decided to take no further action.
• Monitoring of the site would continue.
33. The Council carried out a site survey to consider the ground levels and heights of the houses. The report was completed in September 2024. The survey found no evidence that the houses had not been built in accordance with the approved drawings and levels. It noted that, overall, the approved finished floor levels had increased with every planning iteration of the drawings since 2017. There was no significant difference between the levels contained within the latest approved planning drawing and the construction drawings that the developers were working to on-site.
34. The local MP wrote to the Council on Mr F’s behalf. The Council replied that it had surveyed the site and the houses were the right size and correctly located, fencing was being reviewed and there was no breach for which it would be expedient to take enforcement action.
35. In November, the Council approved the variation of the condition which removed the footpath. In response to my enquiries, the Council said the roads surrounding the site were lightly trafficked and it considered that removing the originally approved footway would not be harmful to highway or pedestrian safety.
36. Mr F made a formal complaint to the Council on 3 December. He raised concerns about:
• the adequacy of the Council’s site survey,
• a lack of information on the Council’s planning website,
• the Council “rubber-stamping” changes to the plans without proper consideration,
• the lack of a footpath,
• the size of gardens, raised terraces, and fencing,
• a lack of retaining walls,
• fencing across a stream, and
• the location of one of the plots.
37. The Council’s response of 20 December said:
• The houses were correctly located in accordance with the approved plans, there was no breach of planning control.
• In terms of the layout of the site, the differences between the approved plans and the dwellings as built, were not significant in planning terms and it would not be expedient to take enforcement action.
• Some conditions, including relating to hard landscaping and the terraces, were still under discussion, some were approved but only needed to be completed prior to occupation.
38. Mr F remained dissatisfied and asked for his complaint to be escalated. In response the Council sent a further letter on 4 February 2025 responding to all of the concerns Mr F had raised in his complaint and request for escalation. This included that:
• the survey undertaken was sufficient for planning enforcement purposes,
• all documents required for public consultation were placed on the website but this did not include working documents when conditions were being negotiated,
• the proposed footpath had been superseded by approval of other plans,
• the Council had asked the developer to submit new plans for hard landscaping, and
• the fencing across the stream had not been approved.
39. The local MP wrote again to the Council in February with concerns about the development and requesting an independent survey be done. The Council replied that it had used a professional surveyor and had decided it was not expedient to take enforcement action.
40. Mr F asked for his complaint to be escalated. The Council’s final complaint response on 11 March restated its previous responses and noted that the hard landscaping condition was still outstanding.
41. Mr F came to the Ombudsman. He said the situation had caused significant stress over several years, disrupted sleeping and taken over their lives. The traffic movements outside their home had caused them to become hypervigilant and they had had to deal with emergency responses to support neighbours.

My findings

42. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. It is not my role to determine whether there have been breaches of planning control and whether enforcement action should be taken. Nor to consider whether a planning decision was right or wrong. It is the role of the planning system, not the Ombudsman, to decide these matters. My role is to determine whether there has been administrative fault in the way the Council made its decisions.
43. The Council did not register Mr F’s April 2024 report as a complaint until 13 June. I appreciate it was not sent to the Council as a formal complaint, and that reports of possible planning breaches are not dealt with through the complaints’ procedure. But my view is it would have been good practice to treat it as a complaint sooner. Our complaint handling code says people should not have to use the word ‘complaint’ for it to be treated as such and Mr F’s report expresses dissatisfaction with the Council’s service. As a result of not registering it as a formal complaint, Mr F had to chase the Council for a response. The Council has already apologised for a delay in replying. This is an appropriate and proportionate remedy for the injustice caused.
44. The Council’s stage one response to Mr F’s December 2024 complaint did not deal with all of the issues he had raised. This was fault which caused him to have to request escalation to stage two. The Council has already apologised for the delay in responding to all of Mr F’s complaint. This is an appropriate and proportionate remedy for the injustice caused.
45. There is no fault in the way the Council dealt with the stage two complaint in February and March 2025.
46. The Council’s complaint responses say, in relation to the alleged planning breaches set out in Mr F’s report and complaints, it had opened enforcement cases, visited, and decided either there was no breach or that if there was a breach it was not expedient to take formal enforcement action. These are decisions the Council is entitled to take. I have seen no evidence the Council did not follow it policies and procedures. On the balance of probability, I find the Council has considered whether it should take enforcement action following site inspections, a site survey and in accordance with its enforcement policy. I do not find fault.
47. In relation to breaches of the construction management plan, Mr F raised concerns about traffic management and construction and delivery vehicles inappropriately manoeuvring or parking in the lanes near his home. He says a barrier was removed and his verge was damaged as a result. The Council says these incidents were caused by drivers not following instructions. It had tried to improve the signage and had worked with the site manager to prevent the issue. In response to my enquiries, the Council said the local highway authority had asked for the barrier to be removed as it was impacting the highway and had witnessed a non-construction vehicle damaging Mr F’s verge. The highway authority dealt with damaged verges. I do not dispute that there have been traffic management problems and possible breaches of that element of the construction management plan. But the Council is entitled to decide not to take enforcement action in relation to these. I have seen no evidence of fault in the Council’s actions.
48. Mr F says the development is not in accordance with the plans approved by the Planning Inspector. This is because since then, the Council has approved changes to conditions which have included changes to some of the plans. As explained in paragraph 16, the developer is entitled to apply for variations to conditions and it is for the Council to determine these. There is therefore no fault in the Council approving the variation of condition in November 2024, even though the plans differ to those allowed on appeal. The site survey found that the development was being built in accordance with the latest approved plans. I do not find fault.
49. I have reviewed the Council’s correspondence and have seen no evidence it has misled the local MP. Nor have I seen evidence of bias towards the developer. I appreciate that Mr F does not agree with the decisions the Council has made but I have seen no evidence of fault in the way those decisions were made.

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Decision

50. There was fault in complaint handling which caused injustice. The actions the Council has already taken remedy the injustice caused. I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman