Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a planning application in the area where the complainant lives. We are unlikely to find fault in the way the Council considered the application. Also, as the Council has not yet issued the planning approval, the complainant has not suffered significant injustice because of the alleged fault.

The complaint

1. The complainant, I shall call Mrs X, complains the Council approved a proposed development of 202 houses on contaminated land without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and which will feed into a sewage system without capacity.
2. Mrs X also says the Planning Officer’s Report for the application misled the Planning Committee, failed to consider responses from the public consultation and ignored the ‘Gunning Principles’ in the public consultation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(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 provided by Mrs X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs X complains the Council has not followed the ‘Gunning Principles’ on public consultation. However, the Council must follow statutory requirements for publicising planning applications.
7. Planning authorities must publicise all planning applications. Depending on the nature of the development, publication may be by newspaper advertisement and / or site notice and / or neighbour notification (The Town and Country Planning (General Development Procedure) Order 1995.) The notice will invite ‘representations’ for or against the application and explain how those representations may be made. The opportunity to make representations is not the same as being consulted. The authority must consider all material representations it receives but officers will not enter a dialogue with members of the public who have objected to a planning application.
8. The local water authority (LWA) confirms there are no issues about capacity of the existing system to serve the proposed development of 202 homes. This is providing the application is approved according to version three of the drainage strategy document.
9. The LWA response also referred to customer concerns about storm overflow and discharges into the sea.
10. The documents produced for the Council’s planning committee, including the planning officer’s report, and meeting minutes, show the Council:
• considered details of the objections received and explained why the proposed development overcame these
• members of the committee visited the proposed development site
• the proposal included a sustainable drainage site, to redirect surface water away from the existing combined sewer network
• the LWA confirmed
1. there is sufficient capacity within the network to accommodate the proposed development and does not object.
2. the Environment Agency responsible for the sewer network on discharges into the environment have raised no objection.
3. the Local Lead Flood Authority does not object to the proposed surface water sustainable drainage system; and
• members of the public voiced their objections at the committee meeting.
11. The information on the Council’s website also shows the Secretary of State decided the application should be decided by the Council. And an EIA is not required.
12. The planning committee:
• heard from objectors and supporters of the application; and
• considered and debated the application

It then decided to delegate authority to officers to approve the application subject to the completion of a legally binding agreement on certain planning obligations.

13. The Ombudsman will only normally investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the service provider. Also, we will not normally investigate a complaint where the complainant is using their enquiry as a way of raising a wider community campaign.

14. The agreement is not complete; therefore, the Council has not yet granted planning permission for the development. As it is therefore possible the application will not be approved, I do not consider that Mrs X has suffered any significant personal injustice.
15. Mrs X also says the Council has failed to investigate her complaint according to its complaint procedure. We expect Councils to respond according to its complaints policy. However, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we not dealing with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because it is the Council’s role, as local planning authority, to reach a judgement about whether a development is acceptable after consideration of:
• local and national planning polices
• comments from statutory consultees; and
• objections/representations from the public.
17. The evidence we have seen strongly suggests that this is what has happened in this case and therefore the Ombudsman would be unlikely to find that there had been fault if he investigated. Also, as planning permission has not been issued, we do not consider Mrs X has suffered a significant personal injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman