Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council included an unenforceable condition on a planning permission. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. There is not enough evidence of fault, and any injustice to the complainant is not significant enough, to justify our continued involvement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, says the Council included an unenforceable condition concerning the routing of lorries when it granted planning permission for the expansion of a livestock farm. Mr X says the Council has mislead residents, who would have challenged the application more if they had known the condition was unenforceable.

Back to top

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.

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

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant, and our Assessment Code. I also considered information about the planning application on the Council’s website.

Back to top

My assessment

4. The applicant submitted a traffic routing plan to support the application. This stated vehicles would access the site via the nearby A and B roads, rather than using other more rural roads.
5. The report to the Planning Committee notes residents’ concerns about the direction of vehicle movements, but concludes a vehicle routing strategy is not necessary. Therefore, the planning permission did not include a specific condition requiring traffic to be routed in a particular direction.
6. However, a standard condition on the permission says the development must be carried out in strict accordance with the application form and approved documents/drawings listed in a table at the end of the decision notice. The table included the applicant’s traffic routing plan.
7. In my view, there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify the Ombudsman starting an investigation. It had regard to the relevant material planning issues when determining the application, including vehicle movements, and the Committee report clearly says a vehicle routing strategy is considered unnecessary. It seems the Council’s only error here is that it included the routing plan in the list of approved documents when a routing strategy had been deemed unnecessary. The Council says it understands the confusion the condition/table of documents has caused and is reviewing the wording of the condition and the way the associated table is populated.
8. In addition, the Council has raised the matter with the applicant and is satisfied he monitors the movements of his vehicles through a tracking system, that there is signage encouraging vehicles to use the preferred route, and that the tracked vehicles use the accepted route. It says it would be extremely difficult to demonstrate that there is any breech of a condition even if one was imposed.
9. Finally, although I appreciate Mr X’s expectations might have been raised by the condition, I am not persuaded the extent of this injustice is so significant as to warrant the Ombudsman pursuing the complaint further.

Back to top

Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council, and any injustice to him is not significant enough to justify our continued involvement.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman