Summary: Mr X complains about a lack of planning enforcement action by the Council against a developer. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about a lack of planning enforcement action by the Council against a developer.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. The complainant had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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My assessment

6. Mr X says that vehicles leaving a development site near him are leaving mud and debris on the road. He says that the developer should have installed a wheel wash to avoid this problem.
7. The planning condition requires the developer to provide details of measures to prevent mud and other such material migrating on to the highway. The Council says that they were not told of any incidents of mud on the road until Mr X’s complaint. The Council says however that they did contact the developer in October 2021 about one such incident who advised that this was a one off incident due to earth moving.
8. The Council accepts that they failed to contact Mr X on occasions after the complaint and they apologised for this.
9. I appreciate that mud and debris on the road is annoying but any failure of the Council to act immediately on this is not sufficient injustice to warrant investigation.

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Final decision

10. I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice caused by the alleged fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman