Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about land clearance done by a neighbour in 2022 near the rear of her and others’ property, how the Council dealt with a withdrawn planning application submitted by the neighbour to develop the land, and how the Council dealt with her contacts and complaint. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council regarding the land clearance, nor injustice caused by the Council, to warrant investigation. We cannot achieve a different outcome on the Council’s handling of the withdrawn planning application. Mrs X’s claimed injustice during the planning process was caused by her neighbour, not the Council. We cannot achieve the outcome she seeks from her complaint. We do not investigate councils’ complaint‑handling and correspondence where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives on a road where one of her neighbours lodged an application, which he subsequently withdrew, for a development on land to the rear of her property and the properties of other neighbours. She complains the Council:
1. failed to take action on work done by the neighbour to clear his land in 2022;
2. incorrectly accepted anonymous comments on the neighbour’s planning application;
3. delayed in dealing with the planning application;
4. delayed in dealing with her complaint.
2. Mrs X says the matter has caused her stress and affected her mental health, and also upset many people in the area. She says the neighbour has committed fraud on his application, made up comments in support of his application, and intimidated and harassed her and other objectors during the planning process. Mrs X wants the Council to prevent her neighbour from submitting any further planning applications for the land.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome; or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mrs X, relevant online planning information and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The neighbour cleared some of his land in February 2022. Mrs X considers the Council should have taken action. The Council says the neighbour’s land clearance was not part of any planning process. The land does not have a planning designation which would prevent the neighbour from clearing it. There is not enough evidence that the Council was at fault here to warrant investigating. It could not prevent the neighbour from working on his land, nor did they have grounds to act once the land was cleared. There is also insufficient injustice to Mrs X stemming from the Council’s involvement in this matter to warrant investigation. I recognise Mrs X’s upset at the effects on local wildlife. But that was caused by the actions of her neighbour, not by any Council action or inaction.
6. Mrs X also complains about the Council’s processing of the neighbour’s planning application. It was submitted in autumn 2022 and withdrawn by the neighbour in early 2023.
7. Mrs X says the Council should not have accepted anonymous comments on the application. The Council has explained that the popularity of an application is not the basis for planning decisions. It is the strength of the relevant and material planning issue put forward which has a bearing on decisions, not the numbers for or against. In any event, the neighbour has withdrawn his application, so this issue of the comments’ impact on a planning decision falls away. Even if the Council was at fault in accepting some of the comments, they no longer have any bearing on the outcome of a live planning application. We will not investigate because there is no different outcome it would achieve here.
8. Mrs X also considers the Council delayed in dealing with the application, leading to an extended period of harassment and intimidation by the applicant. Once it accepted the neighbour’s application, the Council had a deadline for its determination. After that date, the applicant may appeal to the Planning Inspectorate to get their decision, which would end the Council’s process. But once the deadline for determination has passed, an applicant can choose not to appeal and continue discussing their application with the Council instead. This is what happened here. The Council could not end their planning process in the same ways as the applicant, either by appealing to the Inspectorate or withdrawing the application. It is not fault for a council to continue correspondence or discussion on an active planning application with the applicant. This is part of the planning process for many applications. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council on this issue to warrant us investigating. Furthermore, the time between the Council accepting the application and the neighbour withdrawing it is not the core cause of the injustice Mrs X claims. It is the direct result of her neighbour’s behaviour, not the Council’s.
9. The outcome Mrs X wants from her complaint is for the Council to ban her neighbour from submitting future planning applications to seek permission to develop his land. She believes the neighbour’s actions and behaviour during his applications should disqualify him from submitting any more. We could not provide that outcome because no council or other local planning authority can impose such a ban. That we cannot achieve the outcome Mrs X seeks is a further reason why we will not investigate her complaint. If Mrs X considers national planning law should be changed to give planning authorities this kind of power, she would need to pursue this with her MP.
10. Mrs X says the Council delayed in dealing with her correspondence and complaint. We do not investigate councils’ complaint handling and replies to correspondence in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault regarding the 2022 land clearance to warrant investigation; and
• her claimed injustice from the land clearance stems from her neighbour’s actions, not the Council’s; and
• we cannot achieve a different outcome regarding the planning comments issue; and
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault in the duration of the last planning process to justify investigation; and
• her claimed injustice during the time the planning process was ongoing was caused by the neighbour’s behaviour, not the Council’s; and
• we cannot achieve the outcome she seeks from her complaint; and
• we do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling and correspondence where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman