Manchester City Council (20 001 686)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains about the grant of planning permission for the change of use of a neighbouring property. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice to him to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the grant of planning permission for the change of use of a neighbouring property.
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 have considered the comments of the complainant and the Council and the complainant has commented on the draft decision.
What I found
- A planning application was made in May 2020 to make a change of use of a residential property near Mr X to a residential property for disabled adults. The Council granted planning permission in June 2020.
- Mr X says that the planning application did not properly take into account the effect upon parking, possible removal of trees, and he also raised concerns about the ownership of the building.
- I note that Mr X lives across the road from the house and several metres further down the road and has his own driveway. I consider that any alleged failures in the way the planning application was considered would not result in any such significant effect upon Mr X as to warrant investigation.
Final decision
- I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice likely to have been caused to Mr X to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman