Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s planning advice. This is because the complaint is late and it is unlikely we would find fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains the Council wrongly advised her to submit a “full” planning application, rather than an application for “reserved matters”. She says that as a result her application was refused and she has now lost the opportunity to build a new dwelling on her land. She also says she has suffered stress and financial loss.

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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. (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. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal but cannot investigate if the person has already appealed. (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.

5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I reviewed the information provided by Miss X, shared my draft decision with her and invited her comments.

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What I found

7. The Council granted Miss X “outline” planning permission to build a new dwelling on her land more than five years ago.
8. Three months before the outline planning permission expired, Miss X contacted the Council explaining she wished to extend the planning permission beyond the original expiry date. She asked if she could apply to extend the permission or if she would have to apply for full planning permission.
9. The Council responded the same day stating:

“Unfortunately there is no application to apply to extend the time limit on an application. You would need to reapply for your outline application or submit a full/reserved matters application before the application expires.”

10. Mrs X submitted an application for full planning permission two months later. She is not happy with the way the Council handled this application or with the Council’s decision to refuse it. She appealed to the Planning Inspectorate but the Planning Inspector dismissed her appeal. She then complained to the Council that it had misadvised her on the type of application she should submit. She believes the Council should have advised her to submit a reserved matters application or that it should have altered the full application she submitted to consider only those matters which were reserved in the original outline planning permission.
11. Because Miss X has appealed against the Council’s decision to refuse her full planning application we cannot investigate any complaint about the Council’s handling of this application.
12. The actions giving rise to Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s advice date to more than 12 months before she referred the matter to the Ombudsman and this complaint is therefore late. I have seen no good reasons for the delay in bringing this matter to us and I will not therefore exercise our discretion to investigate it.
13. However, even if we were to investigate the matter it is unlikely we would find fault by the Council. The Council has explained to Miss X that the general advice provided was correct and gave her with credible options. There was no reason Miss X could not submit a full planning application and her application was refused on material planning grounds, rather than because she had applied for the wrong permission.
14. The Council also did not tell Miss X to apply for full planning permission specifically; its response did give her the option of submitting a reserved matters application. Had Miss X needed further clarification on which option was better for her she may have requested this from the Council or a planning professional. Ultimately she decided to submit a full planning application and she now considers this was the wrong choice. While she may have had a better chance to be able to continue with her proposal had she applied for planning permission for reserved matters we could not say she lost the opportunity as a result of any fault by the Council.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman