Hastings Borough Council (23 009 683)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 12 Oct 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with comments received from the complainant about a planning application. This is because the complainant has not suffered any significant injustice.
The complaint
- Mr X has complained the Council redacted the comments he made in response to a planning application before they were published on its website.
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 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 Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X says his opinions about the application are valid and the Council’s decision to redact his comments have impacted his standing in the local area and obstructed his right to communicate with the Council’s planning committee. However, I do not consider Mr X has suffered any significant injustice because of the Council’s actions.
- The Council has explained why it considered it necessary to redact Mr X’s comments. This did not prevent Mr X commenting on the proposal and his full comments will be available to the Council when it assesses 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 this affected the planning decision.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has not suffered any significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman