Wiltshire Council (25 000 281)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 29 May 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with applications to register land as a town or village green. This is because the complainant has not suffered significant personal injustice.
The complaint
- Mr X has complained about how the Council dealt with applications to register land as a new town or village green. Mr X says the Council made a series of errors which led to the applications being dealt with incorrectly.
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:
- 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 Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council has received three applications for the site. It has accepted there were errors with the earlier applications for the land. However, I do not consider Mr X has suffered any personal injustice as a result. I understand Mr X supported the applications and says he has spent considerable time and suffered stress addressing issues with the Council’s processes. But he was not the applicant and any personal injustice Mr X suffered would not be significant enough to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman.
- Mr X has also complained about the Council’s complaint handling. However, where the Ombudsman has decided not to investigate the substantive issues complained about, we will not usually use public resources to consider more minor matters such as complaint handling.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has not suffered any significant personal injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman