Summary: We will not investigate this complaint regarding the Council’s response to the complainant’s concerns about a development at a neighbouring property. There is not enough evidence of fault causing a significant personal injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council failed to take appropriate action in response to his concerns about a development at a neighbouring property.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We can 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. So, 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))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered:
• information provided by Mr X and the Council, which included their complaint correspondence and a summary of the Council’s response to Mr X’s reports about environmental health issues.
• information about the neighbour’s planning application, on the Council’s planning portal.
• the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. I appreciate Mr X is unhappy about his neighbour’s development, and thinks the Council should have helped him to take action against it.
5. But I find there is not enough evidence of fault causing Mr X a significant injustice to justify pursuing the complaint further. In reaching this view I am mindful that:
• Although planning permission was refused for the conversion of the neighbour’s property into flats, the neighbour was able to carry out other works under ‘permitted development rights’. This is a national grant of planning permission which allows certain development to be carried out without making a planning application to the local planning authority.
• The Council was not initially responsible for overseeing the building control aspects of the earlier loft conversion, as these were dealt with by a private, Approved Inspector. And, even when the Council was appointed to oversee later works, primary responsibility for building works rests with those that commission it and those who carry it out, not the Council. It is also not the Council’s role to protect neighbouring properties from damage caused by building works. This are private, civil matters between Mr X and his neighbour.
• Party Wall matters are also regarded as a private, civil issues. Mr X may wish to seek his own legal advice about this.
• Where environmental health issues were reported, the Council has, overall, either requested additional evidence from Mr X, visited the site, decided it had no powers to act/there was no breach to act upon, or has issued warnings/notices to the neighbour. On one occasion in February 2023, the Council accepts it failed to take action in response to Mr X’s reports of works outside permitted hours. But I do not consider this caused him a significant injustice, as the Council is likely to have only issued a warning, and no further reports of noise problems were received thereafter.

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Final decision

6. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council causing a significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman