North Lincolnshire Council (19 010 429)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mrs X complains about the way the Council’s Planning Committee considered a planning application. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is no injustice to warrant investigation as planning permission has not been granted yet.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains about the way the Council’s Planning Committee considered a planning application.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered the complainant's and Council's comments. The complainant has commented on the draft decision.
What I found
- Mrs X says that a planning application for a large development of houses was put before the Planning Committee for a vote. She says that the Chair failed to vote and, only after the vote was counted again, did he vote for the planning application. The Council says that the vote was carried out properly.
- The planning application has not yet been granted as it was subject to the creation of a legal agreement which has not yet been agreed. In the absence of planning permission, we cannot say that there has been a significant injustice caused to Mrs X. Any injustice would be based on speculation that the planning application would be granted in future. Should that happen, Mrs X may make a new complaint to this office.
Final decision
- The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because the injustice does not warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman