Swindon Borough Council (24 010 434)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council has dealt with a planning application. This is because the complainant has not suffered any significant personal injustice as a result of the alleged fault.
The complaint
- Mr X has complained about a planning condition imposed by the Council which he believes is unlawful.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:
- 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), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X says the Council should not have imposed the planning condition. However, Mr X is not the planning applicant and therefore he has not suffered any significant personal injustice because of the Council’s decision to apply the condition to the planning permission. The applicant also had the right to appeal to the Planning Inspector if they disagreed with the planning conditions.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has not suffered any significant personal injustice as a result of the alleged fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman