Guildford Borough Council (19 016 140)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 16 Mar 2020
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s consideration of a planning application for landscaping of a car park and a bund near him. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of injustice to him to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the Council’s consideration of a planning application for landscaping of a car parking and a bund 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 had an opportunity to comment on the draft decision.
What I found
- The Council granted planning permission in 2016 for a building as an entertainment venue near Mr X. The planning permission allowed for car parking in a local field.
- A new planning application was submitted in 2019 for car parking and landscaping relating to the earlier planning permission.
- Mr X objected and argued that the car park would cause pollution to the surrounding area.
- Mr X lives approximately 200m away from the car park. The bund which was part of the planning application would reduce the impact upon him (as well as the existing screening of trees). Given that the cars could park on the land (as a result of the previous planning permission) I do not consider that any significant direct personal injustice is caused by the second planning permission as the cars could park in the same place in any event.
- I note that the venue is only proposed to be used 30 times per year. Given this, I do not consider the landscaping and development (and use) of the existing car park would cause such significant injustice to Mr X as to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman