Summary: Mrs X complained about the way the Council dealt with her concerns about development on agricultural land near her home. We ended our investigation because the Council is considering a planning application relating to the land and we are unlikely to find evidence of a significant injustice to Mrs X.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the way the Council dealt with her concerns about development on agricultural land near her home. The Council is currently considering a planning application for development on the land, but Mrs X said that the application is not covering all the issues she has raised with the Council.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I read the complaint and discussed it with Mrs 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.
4. I gave Mrs X and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I considered the comments I received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Planning law and guidance

5. Councils should approve planning applications that accord with policies in the local development plan, unless other material planning considerations indicate they should not.
6. Planning considerations include things like:
• access to the highway;
• protection of ecological and heritage assets; and
• the impact on neighbouring amenity.
7. Planning considerations do not include things like:
• views from a property;
• the impact of development on property value; and
• private rights and interests in land.
8. Planning enforcement is discretionary and formal action should happen only when it would be a proportionate response to the breach. When deciding whether to enforce, councils should consider the likely impact of harm to the public and whether they might grant approval if they were to receive an application for the development or use. Government guidance encourages councils to resolve issues through negotiation and dialogue with developers.
9. Some councils issue guidance on how they would normally make their decisions and how they generally apply planning policy. The guidance is sometimes found in the local plan itself or issued in separate supplementary planning documents.
10. Planning guidance and policy should not be treated as if it creates a binding rule that must be followed. Councils must take account their policy along with other material planning considerations.
11. Although guidance can set different limits, councils normally allow 21 metres between directly facing habitable rooms (such as bedrooms, living and dining rooms) or 12 metres between habitable rooms and blank elevations or elevations that contain only non-habitable room windows (such as bathrooms, kitchens and utility rooms). An ‘elevation’ is the face or view of it from one side shown in a plan.

Background

12. Mrs X lives near a farm. She has complained to the Council about a number of developments on the farm, including workers accommodation, access tracks and entrances, vehicles on the highway and the filling of a ditch. Mrs X said her home is about 120 metres from the workers’ accommodation. There are similar distances between her home and other buildings on the farm. There is a high hedge between Mrs X’s home and the farm.
13. The Council is currently considering a retrospective planning application for workers’ accommodation, access tracks and other works. Mrs X said that not all the issues she has complained about to the Council have been included in the application and are not covered by the area edged in red on the application plans.
14. Mrs X is also unhappy that the Council did not deal with her queries and requests in line with its service standards.

My findings

15. We are not a planning appeal body. Our role is to review the process by which planning decisions are made. We look for evidence of fault causing a significant injustice to the individual complainant.
16. Before we begin or continue our investigations, we consider two, linked questions, which are:
• Is it likely there was fault?
• Is it likely any fault caused a significant injustice?
17. If at any point during our involvement with a complaint, we are satisfied the answer to either question is no, we may decide:
• not to investigate; or
• to end an investigation we have already started.
18. Our investigations need to be proportionate. We may consider any fault or injustice to the individual complainant in its wider context, including the significance of any fault we might find and its impact on others, as well as the costs and disruption caused by our investigations.
19. I should not investigate this complaint further, and my reasons are as follows:
• The Council has not yet decided a retrospective planning application for development on the land. Mrs X knows about the application and has an opportunity to comment on it. She may also raise issues that concern her relating to other issues she believes are not included in the application, as it may be that they can be considered as part of the process, or they have been considered already. We would normally expect comments from consultees to be considered before an application is decided and for the Council to keep some record, perhaps briefly stated, to show it has taken account of the main issues and what it makes of them.
• Even if the Council had already decided the application and Mrs X remained unhappy, we need evidence that she was caused a significant injustice that we could remedy. Our planning remedies normally focus on the immediate impact on amenities caused by the development, and so distance is usually an important consideration. It is unlikely we would find evidence of a significant impact on Mrs X’s amenities, given the space that separates her home and buildings on her neighbour’s land.
• Mrs X complains the Council’s planning officers did not deal with her queries and requests in accordance with its normal service standards. In so far as those queries and requests might relate to planning matters, councils are not obliged to treat neighbours as parties to applications. Councils would not normally enter into discussions with neighbours but should take account of any material planning consideration they raise in their consultation responses. We do not normally investigate complaints about complaint processes, response times and related issues, if we are not investigating the core, substantive issues, which in this case relate to planning decisions, some of which are yet to be made.

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Final decision

20. I ended my investigation because the planning process is ongoing, and I have not seen evidence that Mrs X was caused a significant injustice by developments on her neighbour’s land.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman