Chelmsford City Council (21 001 470)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s failure to take enforcement action regarding the use of a building near him. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the Council’s failure to take enforcement action regarding the use of a building near him.
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
- Mr X lives near a building which had previously been used (and had relevant planning permission) as a sports centre.
- Recently, part of the sports centre has been used as a church. Mr X says that this is a change of use and the Council should have taken planning enforcement action if no planning permission was sought.
- The Council says that the original proposed religious use would have required planning permission. However, they say that there is very limited worship and teaching activity within the building and the Council concluded that this was not such significant change as to require planning permission.
- As such, the Council says that no planning permission is needed and no planning enforcement action can be taken. In the absence of any evidence of fault in the way the Council reached that decision, the Ombudsman can not be critical of the Council’s decision not to take action.
Final decision
- I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman