Summary: Mr B says the Council misled the Planning Committee which influenced its decision to grant planning permission. Although officers failed to correct one piece of information at the Committee meeting there is no evidence this affected the final decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr B, complained the Council misled the Planning Committee which influenced the decision to grant planning permission. Mr B also complains about the Council’s failure to take enforcement action when the operator of the business failed to comply with the conditions on the permission.
2. Mr B says failures by the Council means the applicant can continue to operate a hot food van in a residential and conservation area.

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What I have investigated

3. I have investigated that part of the complaint about how the Council considered the planning application. The final section of this statement contains my reason for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints of injustice caused by maladministration and service failure. I have used the word fault to refer to these. The Ombudsman cannot question whether a Council’s decision is right or wrong simply because Mr B disagrees with it. He must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3))
5. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and Mr B's comments;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• watched a recording of the Planning Committee meeting at which the application was approved.
7. Mr B and the organisation had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

8. In 2018 the Council granted planning permission for temporary change of use of part of a car park to allow siting of a mobile trailer for selling burgers and kebabs. The permission expired on 18 May 2019.
9. The operator of the business put in a planning application for use of the site on a permanent basis later in 2019. The Council refused that application. The operator of the business appealed. The Planning Inspector dismissed the appeal as he did not consider the development preserved the conservation area’s character or appearance.
10. The operator of the site put in a further planning application in 2020. The new application proposed a different type of van and positioned the van further into the car park and away from the public footpath. The Council granted planning permission.
11. Mr B put in a complaint about what he said was misleading information provided to Committee. When considering the complaint at stage two the Council accepted it had not received a 3,000 signature petition in favour of the development as the applicant had claimed. The Council also accepted that although officers had told Committee they could not take the petition into account as it related to a previous application they had failed to make clear the previous petition was not for 3,000 signatures. The Council apologised for that. The Council explained it did not consider that failure affected the decision given officers had recommended approval of the application. The Council told Mr B it had put in place training for Planning Committee Members and intended to highlight to planning officers the importance of not appearing to give credence to misleading statements by others.

Analysis

12. Mr B says planning officers misled the Planning Committee which influenced the decision to grant planning permission. Mr B says officers wrongly told the Planning Committee there was a 3,000 signature petition in favour of the application when that was not the case. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the issue of the 3,000 signature petition was raised by the applicant in the late representations and was read out by a Council officer at the meeting. Having watched a recording of the Planning Committee I note only two Members directly noted the petition as part of the discussion on the application. One of those Members voted against the application in any case. For the other Member that referred to the application it is clear he said he considered the number of signatures in favour of the proposal significant. Given that Member believed a 3,000 signature petition was provided with the application it seems likely other Members may have interpreted that the same way.
13. However, I am satisfied the Council’s principal planning officer made clear the petition referred to had been submitted as part of the previous application and advised Committee it could therefore not take it into account. So, I am satisfied Committee was properly advised. The Member that referred to the size of the petition being important has also confirmed since the Committee meeting that even if there had been no petition he would still have supported the application. Given that, plus the fact officers had made clear the petition could not be taken into account on this planning application and as no other Members referred to the importance of the petition I do not consider it likely, on the balance of probability, the existence of a petition affected the decision on the planning application.
14. I understand Mr B’s concern though given the petition for the previous planning application contained only 150 signatures and not 3,000. The Council has accepted officers failed to clarify the petition previously submitted had only 150 signatures. That is fault. However, irrespective of the number of signatures on the petition I am satisfied officers correctly advised Committee they could not take that petition into account. Having watched a recording of the Planning Committee meeting I have seen no evidence to suggest Committee granted permission for the development based on a misunderstanding about whether there was a petition and the number of signatures provided on that petition. In those circumstances I consider the Council’s apology to Mr B for failing to correct the information about the number of signatures on the petition satisfactory remedy.
15. I am also satisfied that in granting planning permission for the development the Council properly considered the application. I am satisfied the issues were fully explored in the report for the planning application and Members discussed some of those issues during the Committee meeting. I understand Mr B’s concern about a grant of permission when the Council had previously refused planning permission and the Planning Inspectorate had rejected an appeal. However, each application has to be considered on its own merits. In this case the applicant had changed the type of vehicle from which hot food would be sold and had amended the location of that vehicle on site. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the majority of Committee Members were satisfied in doing so the applicant had addressed the two areas of concern which had led the Planning Inspector to refuse the appeal. I recognise Mr B is likely to strongly disagree with the decision reached by the Council. However, as there is no evidence of fault in how the Council reached its decision there are no grounds on which I could criticise it.

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Final decision

16. I have completed my investigation and found fault by the Council in part of the complaint which the Council has remedied by apologising to Mr B.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

17. I am not investigating Mr B’s concerns about enforcement issues relating to the applicant adding an additional vehicle to the site. That is because those matters are still under consideration by the Council and Mr B has not completed the Council’s complaints procedure in relation to those issues. Once the Council has made a decision on the enforcement investigation and Mr B has completed the Council’s complaints procedure, if he is unhappy with the outcome, he can bring a further complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman