Cornwall Council (23 006 778)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 19 Sep 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to remove the public comments it received about a planning application from its website. This is because the complainant has not suffered any significant injustice.
The complaint
- Mrs X has complained the Council removed the public comments it received in response to a planning application from its website. Mrs X says the removal of the comments gives the false impression that no one in the community is concerned about the development.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate 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 continue 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), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs X has complained about the Council’s decision to remove the public comments it received about a planning application from its website. However, I do not consider Mrs X has suffered any significant injustice as a result.
- Councils do usually publish public comments, but there is no legal requirement to do so and in this case the Council has explained why it removed the comments. Residents, including Mrs X, have still been able to comment on the proposal and this information will be available to the planning officer when they assess the acceptability of the application.
- The application has also not yet been determined. Therefore, even if I were to find fault by the Council, I could not yet say if this affected the planning decision.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she has not suffered any significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman