Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to accept and determine a ‘reserved matters’ planning application for a residential development across the road from his house. The Council’s actions do not cause sufficient significant personal injustice to Mr X to warrant an Ombudsman investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives on the other side of the road to a residential development site. He complains the Council has incorrectly accepted as valid a ‘reserved matters’ residential planning application which differs materially from the permission granted at the earlier ‘outline’ planning stage.
2. Mr X is concerned the level of affordable housing will result in an inappropriate mix of households within the development, against Council policy and national government guidance. He wants the Council to:
• declare the application invalid; and
• require the applicant to amend the reserved matters application to be only 30 percent affordable housing, in line with the outline planning decision; or
• require the developer to submit a new full planning application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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:

• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. As part of my assessment I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mr X;
• viewed relevant online maps and planning documents;
• issued a draft decision, inviting Mr X to reply, and considered the response received.

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What I found

5. Between the outline approval granted by the Planning Inspectorate on appeal, and the reserved matters application, Mr X says the percentage of affordable housing proposed on the site changed from 30 to 100 percent.
6. Mr X’s concern is the Council has not followed the proper planning process to deal with the reserved matters application. He says under Article 6 of The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, a:

‘reserved matters application must be in line with the outline approval … If your proposals have changed in any way, you may need to reapply for outline or full planning permission’.

7. The Council took legal advice and decided the reserved matters application was valid and officers could determine it. It says the stipulation for the site’s affordable housing is for 30 percent of the houses to be within the Council’s full control. The Council says it cannot place further controls on what the developer does with the remaining 70 percent of properties. The Council has granted the permission.
8. Even if there has been fault by the Council in accepting the reserved matters application as valid, or in any other part of the planning process, I do not consider the Ombudsman should investigate. This is because the matter does not cause Mr X the significant level of personal injustice required to justify an Ombudsman investigation. Mr X has confirmed and clarified that he is ‘not claiming any personal injustice’.
9. I understand Mr X feels strongly about the matter, but the Ombudsman does not investigate all complaints where someone considers they have identified council fault. The Ombudsman is not a regulator of councils; he is a complaint-handling service. The Ombudsman’s remit, as set out in paragraph three above, requires him to not only consider fault, but also ‘whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint’, which he calls ‘injustice’. If there is no significant personal injustice caused to a complainant by an alleged fault, then the Ombudsman will not investigate.
10. Mr X does not complain about the building of the houses causing any negative impact on his property’s amenity. His concern is about the affordable housing percentage, which relates to who will live in the properties in future. Mr X considers the result of the Council’s decision that the reserved matters application is valid is that the whole development could be affordable housing. Mr X would not be caused any significant personal injustice by this, or by whoever lives in the houses once they are built.
11. Mr X might be concerned that future residents feel the new development is segregated from other residences due to its percentage of affordable housing. But that would not be Mr X’s personal injustice.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the matter Mr X complains of does not cause him sufficient significant personal injustice to warrant an Ombudsman investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman