Summary: Mrs B complains the Council’s Highways department provided inaccurate information to the planning department of the District Council, which then granted planning permission for development near to her home. The Ombudsman finds that there are no grounds to continue investigation of this complaint, as the planning permission has now been quashed. Mrs B has not therefore been caused significant injustice by the actions complained of.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs B, complains the County Council’s Highways department provided inaccurate information to the planning department of the District Council in association with a planning application, wrongly stating there are passing opportunities within the adopted highway, which is a single-track road across a village green. The District Council granted planning permission for development.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
3. 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 for example the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered all the information provided by Mrs B about her complaint. I made written enquiries of the District Council as a third party and considered the information it provided in response. I issued Mrs B and the Council with a draft of this decision and took account of comments received in response.

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What I found

5. The District Council received an application for planning permission for development near to Mrs B’s home. The District Council consulted the Highway Authority at the County Council (‘the Council’), as a statutory consultee. In its response, the Council said the planning applicant had identified several informal passing places that could be used should two-way traffic movement occur. The Council’s view was that given the tidal nature of the peak traffic movements it was unlikely this would occur frequently. The Council concluded there were no highway objections to the proposed development. Planning permission was subsequently granted by the District Council.

Mrs B’s concerns

6. Mrs B complained to the Council. She noted it had said it had no objection to the planning application as informal passing places had been identified by the applicant that could accommodate two-way traffic, but she said this related to privately maintained driveways where they meet the public highway. She felt the Council was wrong to suggest that the increased traffic generated by the new development could be adequately accommodated by the use of private driveways and the grass verges of the protected common as passing spaces, and noted that driving on common land other than on a highway is a criminal offence. She therefore questioned the legal basis for the Council’s position.

Application for Judicial Review of the decision to grant planning permission

7. One of Mrs B’s neighbours applied for permission to judicially review the decision of the District Council to grant planning permission for the development. The Highways issue was one of four grounds put forward.
8. Although permission was granted for that matter to proceed to a full hearing, that did not take place because the District Council conceded that the planning permission should be quashed on one of the grounds, unrelated to the Highways issue. While the claimant in the proceedings maintained that the District Council had erred on the other three grounds also, she consented to the quashing of the permission on ground one only, to save the Court’s resources and costs. The court did not therefore need to go on to consider the Highways matter.

Planning permission is quashed

9. On 6 September 2019 the High Court issued a Consent Order setting out that the planning permission be quashed, and the planning application would be reconsidered.

Analysis

10. Mrs B had concerns that the advice from the Council’s Highways department to the planning department of the District Council was flawed. That was relevant only so long as the planning permission was in place. As the planning permission has now been quashed, there is no significant injustice to Mrs B arising from that consultation response from the Council’s Highways department. There are therefore no grounds for the Ombudsman to investigate this matter further.

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Final decision

11. I discontinued my investigation for the reasons set out above.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman