Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s delay in validating his planning application. Mr X’s injustice stems from the Council’s requirement to provide an additional survey and the law provided him an alternative remedy to challenge this.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s validation process for his planning application. He says the Council insisted he provide a survey he believes was not necessary and this cost him £530.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

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

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b))
4. The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister. The Planning Inspector considers appeals about:

• delay – usually over eight weeks – by an authority in deciding an application for planning permission
• a decision to refuse planning permission
• conditions placed on planning permission
• a planning enforcement notice.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I reviewed Mr X’s complaint and the Council’s responses. I shared my draft decision with Mr X and considered his comments.

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What I found

6. Mr X applied for planning permission from the Council in 2018. He says the Council took too long to validate and decide his application and that it asked for a survey which he considers was not necessary. He complained to the Council but it did not respond. It later explained it had prepared a response to the complaint but due to an internal error this was not sent. It apologised for the delay in dealing with Mr X’s complaint but confirmed the survey was required and that it had decided the application within the statutory time limit.
7. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. The Council has explained the reasons for its delay in validating Mr X’s application and I have seen nothing to suggest Mr X suffered significant injustice as a result of this. The Council determined the application itself within the statutory time period (eight weeks from the date it validated the application) and it has now granted planning permission. This means Mr X may proceed with his development.
8. The injustice Mr X describes stems from the Council’s requirement to provide a survey he believes was unnecessary but this is a matter of professional judgement and I have seen nothing to suggest it amounts to fault by the Council; we cannot therefore criticise it. Had Mr X wished to dispute the requirement to provide the survey Article 12 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure)(England) Order 2015 provided a formal way to do so.
9. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council has dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

10. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it would have been reasonable for Mr X to challenge the Council’s requirement for the survey using the formal process. This process was better placed to deal with the issue and we cannot question the judgement of council officers who considered the information was necessary.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman