Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s decision to approve a planning application to extend and change the use of a disused building. We did not investigate this complaint further as Mr X was not caused a significant injustice and there was no evidence of fault in the process by which the decision was made.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s decision to approve a planning application to extend and change the use of a disused building to become a dwelling.
2. Mr X does not claim to be personally or directly affected by the development but says it will affect the appearance of his area, increase on-street car parking and affect road safety.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I read the complaint and discussed it with Mr X. I read the Council’s response to the complaint and considered documents from its planning files, including the plans and the case officer’s report.
5. I gave the Council and Mr X an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision and received no comments.

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What I found

Planning law and guidance

6. Councils should approve planning applications that accord with policies on the local development plan, unless other material planning considerations indicate they should not.
7. Planning considerations include things like:
• access to the highway;
• protection of ecological and heritage assets; and
• the impact on neighbouring amenity.
8. Planning considerations do not include things like:
• views over another’s land;
• the impact of development on property value; and
• private rights and interests in land.
9. Councils may impose planning conditions to make development acceptable in planning terms. Conditions should be necessary, enforceable and reasonable in all other regards.
10. Where planning permission is granted, developers sometimes find it necessary to make changes and sometimes this happens during the planning application process.
11. If the Council decides the changes are ‘material’, it may require that the whole process begins again with a fresh application. However, if the changes are considered ‘non-material’ the Council may allow changes without re-starting the process, but only if:
• it considers the procedural fairness of doing so. It should consider whether it might deprive any third party of the opportunity of making representations they might want to make; and
• the nature of the application remains the same, so the amended proposal is still substantially the same as the original.
12. This type of amendment is known as a non-material amendment.
13. Councils may also decide that very minor changes are so insignificant, they require no procedural action. Planners often refer to this type of change as ‘de minimis’.

What happened

14. The land opposite Mr X’s home was the site of a disused building. The owner of the site applied for planning permission to extend and change the use of the building so that it could be used as a dwelling.
15. The application was considered by a planning case officer, who wrote a report setting out his views on the application. The case officer report included:
• a description of the proposal and site;
• a summary of relevant planning history;
• comments from Mr X and other consultees;
• relevant planning policy and guidance;
• an appraisal of the main planning considerations, including the expected impact on green belt land, ecology, design, heritage, amenity and highway safety; and
• the officer’s recommendation to approve the application, subject to planning conditions.
16. During the process, the Council’s conservation and highways officers expressed concerns about design and highway safety issues. As a result of these concerns, the applicant submitted amended plans. These were considered before a decision was made and dealt with as minor amendments. Because of this, the Council decided not to further consult the public and other consultees on the changes.
17. The application, the plans and the case officer’s report were considered by a senior officer, who approved the application subject to planning conditions using delegated powers.
18. Mr X was unhappy with the Council’s decision and complained. The Council reviewed what had happened but did not uphold Mr X’s complaint because it found no fault in process. Mr X then complained to the Ombudsman.

My findings

19. We are not a planning appeal body. Our role is to review the process by which planning decisions are made. If we find evidence of fault in the decision-making process, we must decide whether it caused an injustice to the complainant. To do this, we need evidence to show that, but for the fault, the outcome would have been different.
20. Mr X lives opposite the site and is not significantly affected by its use as a dwelling.
21. I have reviewed the planning documents and can see that before it made its decision the Council took account of the plans, comments from consultees, relevant law and guidance and the case officer’s recommendation before making its decision. This is the process we would expect the Council to follow and I think it unlikely that further investigation is unlikely to find fault or that the outcome would have been different.
22. Mr X would have preferred to have been reconsulted on the amendments to the original plans, but the Council decided to treat the changes as minor amendments, and this was a decision it was entitled to make.
23. For these reasons, I should not investigate Mr X’s complaint further.

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Final decision

24. I ended my investigation as further investigation is unlikely to lead to a meaningful outcome or result in a finding of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman