Summary: The Ombudsman found no fault on Mr P’s complaint about the Council’s consideration of a neighbour’s planning application. It complied with its obligation to publicise it, assessed its potential impact, and the onsite trees were not within a conservation area or protected by order or planning condition. There was not enough injustice to Mr P from any possible failure to carry out a site visit to investigate this further.

The complaint

1. Mr P complains about the Council’s handling of a neighbour’s planning application. He says:
1. the neighbour removed mature trees even though the application form said he would not; and
2. the Council failed to address this.
2. As a result, he was caused a great deal of distress and disappointment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
4. 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered all the information Mr P sent, the notes my colleague made of their telephone conversation, the photographs he sent, and the Council’s response to our enquiries, a copy of which I sent him. I sent a copy of my draft decision to Mr P and the Council. I considered their responses.

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What I found

6. Mr P lives in a conservation area. He is unhappy about the way the Council dealt with a neighbour’s planning application to extend a bungalow to its rear. He complains the Council failed to notify him of it, although accepts his property does not share a boundary with the site. The single storey extension faces his property across another neighbour’s land.
7. He believes it has a negative impact on the local environment, the conservation area, the Green Belt, and is unhappy the officer refused to meet those making representations, He is also unhappy the neighbour removed mature trees when carrying out the works and notes the application form states no trees or hedges needed removing.
8. When he complained, the Council explained:

• Four neighbouring properties were notified of the application by letter, and it was publicised by site notice and press notice. It says this met the notification legal requirements. It accepted Mr P was not notified but this was because his property shares no boundary with the site;
• The planning officer’s report referred to the impact on the Green Belt and concluded it was appropriate development;
• The report also considered the impact of the extension on the character and appearance of the conservation area although the site is not within the area. The report decided its character and appearance would be preserved; and
• Although the application says no trees or hedges would be removed, the Council decided there was no need for a condition on the planning consent requiring the keeping of the trees/hedges. From the plans, it was clear it was not possible to keep any tree or hedging along the rear boundary of the site and the proposed extension.

Analysis

Notification

9. The Council’s Statement of Community Involvement (2017) sets out what it will do in terms of involving local communities when it receives planning applications. It will notify the public by using letters, site notices, or press notices. It explains national legislation and regulations set out the statutory requirements about who should be notified.
10. The law says the Council had to publicise this application by: i) a site notice in at least one place on or near the land to which the application relates for not less than 21 days or; ii) by serving a notice on any adjoining owner or occupier. (Article 15, The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) (Order) 2015)
11. There was no fault on this complaint because:

• There is another property between his property and the site. As Mr P’s property does not adjoin (share a boundary, for example) the application site, the Council had no obligation to send him a neighbour notification letter;
• I have seen a photograph of the site notice on the Council’s website for the application which shows it attached to the front of the site. I am satisfied, therefore, the Council complied with the legal requirements for this type of application even though I have not seen copies of letters sent; and
• The planning officer was under no obligation to meet those making representations. The Council’s legal obligation was to publicise the application and consider representations received raising material planning considerations.

Site visits

12. In response to our enquiries, the Council confirmed no site visit was done. The officer did a desk-based assessment using Google Earth aerial photography, Street View, previous planning history files, the planning application forms, and drawings sent. The officer decided a visit was not needed. The Council explained considering high case workloads, and limited resources, its working practice is to only do them when considered necessary to allow the determination of planning applications.
13. The law does not require the Council to carry out a site visit but, it is normal and accepted good practice for officers to visit application sites when assessing proposals. The obvious advantage of doing them is the officer views the site and assesses the relationship to surrounding properties and any possible impact. I consider viewing plans, photographs, and views of the site from the internet does not fully and properly replicate a physical viewing of the site.
14. I have also had to consider the law which requires the Ombudsman to consider what injustice a complainant suffered should an investigation find fault on a complaint. In these circumstances, I am not satisfied the public expense of further investigating this complaint is justified to establish whether its decision amounts to fault. This is because after considering all the evidence, and Mr P’s photographs, I am not satisfied there is enough injustice to him even if we went on to find fault. In reaching this conclusion, I noted the following:

• Mr P’s property has not lost privacy from the building of this extension;
• There is no overlooking because this is a ground floor extension;
• The separation distance between the 2 properties; and
• The screening between them (fencing and bushes, for example).

15. If there had been enough injustice to Mr P, I would have explored: the failure to do a site visit; what guidance the Council issues to officers about deciding whether to do them or not; the actual evidence considered when deciding not to do a site visit.

Assessment

16. The planning officer’s report is brief. The Council confirmed it is working practice to provide concise delegated officer reports proportionate to the scale of the development, and to key material planning considerations.
17. The report refers to ‘boundary treatments’ but there is no information in the planning application or plans about what is on the boundaries and what the officer considered. The officer did not visit the site and so had to rely on information from the internet and old planning files. No record of this information was provided to support the assessment the officer carried out when assessing the extension’s impact and the existing boundary treatment.
18. The proposed informative in the report noted the proposal, ‘involves building works on the boundary of your property’. This drew the applicant’s attention to the requirements of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 and was included in the decision notice. An informative allows a council to draw the applicant’s attention to other relevant issues, such as the need to get consent under different regimes, for example. What this informative shows was an awareness of the extension close to the boundary and the impact this would have on the existing boundary to the rear of the site.
19. The report also confirmed the site was within the Green Belt. It concluded the character and appearance of the conservation area would be preserved. It also concluded it would not have an unacceptable impact on visual amenity.
20. On balance, in these circumstances, I found no fault by the Council:

• in the way it considered the potential impact of the development being in the Green Belt and its potential impact on the conservation area. This is because the report shows this was considered;
• planning officer’s report which states it considered the positions of the windows on the extension, the separation distances, its orientation, the height of buildings (not identified), and boundary treatments; and
• despite an extremely short officer report which does not go into detail about the surrounding properties it assessed these factors against. I am satisfied the assessment was done and was done for Mr P’s property.

Trees

21. In response to our enquiries, the Council explained the evidence showed none of the trees were protected. They were not within the conservation area, protected by tree preservation orders, or required to be kept by previous planning conditions. The applicant could have removed the trees whenever he wanted. Nor were they considered significant in terms of any public visual amenity value. For these reasons, it did not carry out consultation with its conservation, biodiversity, or tree officers.
22. The Council also explained it decided not to require the applicant to keep the trees by attaching a planning condition to the consent. This was because it decided the extension would not lead to unacceptable loss of privacy to neighbouring properties from overlooking. For this reason, it decided there was no need to include a condition in the consent for their retention for screening.
23. On balance, I found no fault on this complaint because:

• The trees were not in the conservation area;
• Nor were they subject to tree preservation orders;
• There was no requirement to keep them under previous planning consent;
• The applicant could have removed them at any time, despite what he said in the application form;
• The plans, as evidenced by the informative, show they were unlikely to remain in place because of the proximity of the extension; and
• The officer’s report considered the extension would not have a significant impact on residential amenity, which would include privacy.

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Final decision

24. The Ombudsman found no fault on Mr P’s complaint against the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman