Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of the sale of a piece of land in Ms X’s locale and a subsequent planning application made in relation to it. This is because the complaint is a late complaint due to the passage of time and so falls outside our jurisdiction.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the way the Council sold a piece of land in her local area and about its handling of a planning application for development at a site which included the sold land. She says she and others have lost the use of the land and the wildlife from within it and wants it put back to its previous state with no building on it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. 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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council, including its response to the complaint.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies to Ms X’s complaint. The sale of the land and the determination of the planning application to which she refers took place over 12 months ago. As we would reasonably have expected her to have complained to us about these matters sooner, the complaint falls outside our jurisdiction due to the passage of time and will not be investigated.
8. Moreover, the sale of the land completed a number of years ago and the planning permission granted nearly two years ago and we even if we investigated, we could not achieve the outcome Ms X seeks for her complaint as an investigation could not reverse the sale of the land nor the planning permission already granted.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is a late complaint due to the passage of time and so falls outside our jurisdiction.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman