New Forest National Park Authority (23 018 540)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 12 Mar 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s validation of his planning application. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Mr X significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council wrongly validated a planning application made on his behalf which did not contain the information required for validation. He says the issue directly impacted on his ownership of a tree.
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 Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- 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.
- I understand Mr X is concerned the Council validated his application without the required information but I have seen nothing to show this caused him significant injustice. His agent was responsible for the content of the application form, which now shows Mr X as the owner of the tree and contains his name and address details, and although the Council has approved his application this does not transfer any rights of ownership over his tree to any third party.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Mr X significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman