Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning application for a development in the complainant’s village. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. There is nothing to suggest fault by the Council has caused the complainant a significant personal injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, says the Council has mishandled the planning process for a planning application in his village and it is deviating from planning principles and procedures. In particular, Mr X says:
• A historical planning decision and a flood report are wrongly being used to justify/support the current proposal.
• National and local planning policies are being ignored.
• There is bias in the speed and manner in which comments are uploaded to the Council’s planning portal, with supporting comments being favoured. Mr X also says the date of publication shown on the portal for some comments is incorrect.

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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 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 Mr X and information about the planning application on the Council’s planning portal.
4. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. I appreciate Mr X has concerns about the way the Council has uploaded representations to its planning portal, and the publication date it has attached to some of those comments. But I have seen no evidence to suggest that this is likely to affect or influence the way the Council assesses the material planning considerations when it comes to determine the application. I am therefore not persuaded Mr X has suffered a significant personal injustice as a result of the alleged fault in the handling of the comments, so the Ombudsman will not investigate this part of the complaint.
6. And it will be open to Mr X to pursue a separate complaint with the Council once the application is determined, if he is unhappy with the way it considers the information submitted by the applicant, planning policies, and/or the representations submitted by interested parties.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is currently no evidence that fault by the Council has caused him a significant personal injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman