Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning application. This is because the issues Mr X raises did not affect the Council’s decision to grant planning permission or cause him significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains on behalf of a local interest group. He says the Council did not act with clarity or transparency when determining an application for development in the local area. He says the Council failed to respond to his questions about the application, withheld information, failed to follow its own guidance regarding an impact assessment and wrongly summarised objections to the proposal.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
5. I have considered Mr X’s concerns about the Council’s handling of the application but we could not say these issues caused him, or the group he represents, significant injustice. This is because we cannot say they wrongly affected the Council’s decision. I appreciate it was frustrating for Mr X that the Council did not respond to his questions and that it did not fully explain the reasons for departing from its guidance sooner but this itself is not significant enough to warrant investigation.
6. The Council was entitled to summarise objections as it saw fit and has explained the reasons for not requesting an impact assessment. The Council’s planning committee determined the application and if the committee felt it did not have sufficient information to make a decision it could have deferred its decision and requested further details. The fact it did not shows it was satisfied with the information it had and did not consider it required anything more.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we could not say the issues Mr X has raised wrongly affected the outcome of the planning application or caused Mr X significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman