Summary: Ms C complained that the Council breached its own guidance and policies when approving an application for planning permission made by her neighbour. The Council was not at fault. It considered all the relevant policies before making its decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms C, said the Council was at fault for a failure to consider relevant policies and guidance when granting permission to her neighbour to build an extension along their shared boundary.
2. Ms C says the Council wrongly granted permission and this caused her injustice because the extension has blocked daylight from three of her rooms and is so close to her house that she and her family will hear noise from inside.
3. Ms C said she wanted the Ombudsman to require the neighbour to knock down the extension and offer them compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether an organisation’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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. I spoke to Ms C. I considered information provided by the Council and any relevant policies and guidance.
7. Ms C and the Council 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

What should happen

8. The central government has passed laws and regulations and issued guidance to control planning in England. The general rule, set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, is that there is a presumption in favour of granting permission. That is, that unless there are sufficient reasons not to do so, permission for sustainable development should be granted.
9. Reasons not to do so include a finding that the development would interfere with the ‘amenity’ of local people and that the development does not comply with local planning policy and guidance. These are matters of professional judgment and the Ombudsman will not usually find fault with a Council for a decision made by a professional providing there is no procedural fault in the making of the decision.
10. On receipt of an application for planning permission, councils must process the application correctly. A planning officer must write a report considering the application and making a recommendation either to grant or refuse permission. The Council will then make the decision.

The Ombudsman’s role

11. The Ombudsman, when dealing with complaints about the granting of planning permission, cannot consider whether the decision was right or wrong. It is the role of the planning system, not the Ombudsman, to decide on an application. Our role is to determine whether there has been administrative fault in the way the decision was made.

What happened

12. In 2018, before Ms C bought her property, the owners of the neighbouring house applied to build a long, single-story extension along the border shared with Ms C’s property. They submitted a set of plans, Plan A, with the application.
13. A planning officer wrote a report in which he considered the relevant policies. The report said Plan A was acceptable except that it should begin one metre further back from the front elevation. The neighbour presented amended plans, Plan B. The Council granted permission.
14. In 2020, Ms C bought her house. At this point, work on the extension had not yet begun. Before purchasing the property, Ms C discovered that permission had been granted for an extension but felt, at this point, that it would not unduly affect her property. She therefore purchased it.
15. However, Ms C says, after work commenced in 2021, she realised how imposing the structure was. She investigated and came to believe the neighbour was using Plan A rather than Plan B. She approached the neighbours who said they would make a retrospective planning application with revised plans.
16. The neighbour then made a further planning application and presented a new set of plans to the Council for approval, Plan C. In this plan, the length of the extension was the same as in Plan A but it was 0.6 metres narrower. There were also two additional side windows.
17. A planning officer wrote a report. It again referenced the relevant policies. The officer said the width of the extension would be reduced and it would, therefore, be set back further from the boundary. It stated that this would reduce the impact on Ms C’s property. The report recommended a grant of permission. Permission was granted.
18. Ms C noticed that the officer’s report had made no explicit mention of the fact that the extension would be one metre longer than previously permitted.
19. Ms C phoned the Council. She spoke to the officer who wrote the report. She says, he told her he had not noticed the extension would extend further forward.
20. Ms C then contacted a senior planning officer who said that the officer who wrote the report had been supervised by senior officers such as herself who had been aware of the change to the length of the extension and involved in the decision to recommend a grant of permission.
21. Ms C initially accepted this but, as the extension was built, she says it became increasingly clear how much the extension would affect her property.
22. Ms C complained formally through the Council’s internal complaints procedure without success before complaining to the Ombudsman.

Was there fault causing injustice?

23. Ms C was aware that permission for an extension had been granted in 2018 when she bought her property and was aware that it would run along much of the length of the border between her property and her neighbours house. The Ombudsman cannot look at the rights and wrongs of that decision which was taken too long ago and which Ms C implicitly accepted by buying her property.
24. It therefore follows that an extension of some sort would be built regardless of any fault. Therefore, any fault would cause Ms C limited injustice.
25. Ms C says the ‘Plan C’ decision was faulty in that the planning officer did not bear in mind the Council’s planning policies as he should have done. However, it is clear that, in granting permission, the planning officer did consider the relevant policies and stated, when he departed from them, that he considered that to do so was justified in the circumstances.
26. Ms C disagrees with this assessment but the Ombudsman cannot find fault on that basis. We must look at whether there was administrative fault in the way the decision was reached.
27. Ms C says there was fault because the planning officer’s report did not say that Plan C contained a proposal to increase the length of the extension.
28. However, Ms C has raised this point with the Council. It said that, while the officer writing the report did not know the extension would be longer, senior officers involved in the decision-making process did know. It adds that the planning decision was not made by the officer but by the Council’s planning department. Therefore, the decision was made with all the relevant information in mind.
29. In my view, while it may not have been ideal that the report did not mention the change in the length of the extension, this was not fault. The courts have decided that officer reports do not need to be perfect or to state every issue or policy that might be relevant. It is enough if the key contentious issues have been covered.
30. When considering a planning complaint, the Ombudsman needs to find that the fault would have been likely to alter the decision made.
31. In my view, though the report did not mention the length of the extension, the evidence shows this made no difference to the decision. The planning department knew about this when granting permission. I do not, therefore, find fault.

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Final decision

32. I have found that the Council was not at fault and closed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman