Summary: We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint about the Council’s decision to grant planning permission for a development which she says will affect the privacy of her home. This is because the information does not indicate the Council’s decision was affected by fault.

The complaint

1. Mrs B complains the Council did not notify her about a planning application for an extension to a nearby property. Mrs B also complains the Council did not give proper consideration to the impact of the extension on the privacy of her home and has not answered her questions about how this application was decided.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

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

3. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mrs B and have looked at planning records and the Council’s planning policies on the Council’s website.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Regulations set out the minimum requirements for how councils must publicise planning applications (Article 15 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) Order 2015).
7. For all applications apart from major applications councils must publicise by either:

• a site notice; or
• serving notice on adjoining owners or occupiers.

8. As well as regulatory minimum requirements, councils must also produce a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). The SCI sets out the council’s policy on how it will communicate with the public when it carries out its functions. In their SCI policy councils may commit to do more than the minimum legal requirements, for example, to put up a site notice and to serve notice on adjoining owners or occupiers.
9. The planning application Mrs B complains about was for a type of minor development called householder development. Regulations required the Council to publicise this application by either displaying a site notice or writing to adjoining properties. The Council’s SCI says for householder development the Council will write to adjoining properties and will only display a site notice if the development affects a listed building or is in a conservation area.
10. The Council publicised this planning application in line with regulations and its own SCI by writing to adjoining properties. Mrs B’s property does not share a boundary with the application property so is not an adjoining property. This means the Council was not at fault for not sending a letter to Mrs B’s property.
11. The Council wrote a case report setting out its consideration of this proposal. This included consideration of the impact of the development on nearby properties. The Council explained why it considered this impact was acceptable. The Council did not need to state the distance between the application property and the building where Mrs B lives to make this assessment. And, as the Council has explained to Mrs B, there is no Council or national planning minimum distance for properties which are at an angle of 45 degrees from a proposed development.
12. I have not seen any information to suggest the Council’s assessment was affected by fault. This means we cannot say the Council’s judgement that this proposal is acceptable in planning terms was right or wrong.
13. Also, the Council answered Mrs B’s questions in response to her complaint.
14. So, we will not investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman