Summary: We cannot conclude, on the available evidence, the Council failed to meet the statutory requirements to publicise a planning application, but it was at fault for not keeping a photograph of a site notice, in accordance with its procedures. This did not cause an injustice to the complainants. There was no fault in how the Council validated or considered the application. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainants in this case are Mr and Mrs N, and Mr and Mrs B, but all complainants are represented by Mr N. In the interests of simplicity, therefore, I will refer only to Mr N, except where it is necessary to differentiate between the complainants.
2. Mr N complains about the Council’s decision to grant planning permission for an extension to a nearby property. He says the Council:

• did not follow the legal requirements to publicise the planning application;
• did not properly consider the separation distances between the development and neighbouring properties; and
• accepted the planning application when it was not valid.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered evidence provided by Mr N and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

7. The following will provide an overview of the key facts relevant to Mr N’s complaint. It is not intended to describe everything that happened, or every detail of Mr N’s correspondence with the Council.
8. The complainants live in a cul-de-sac, which backs on to another residential road. In 2023, the owner of a property on that road sought and gained planning permission from the Council to build an extension, consisting of a dormer roof with new windows at the front, side and rear. The new rear window was to look sideways across Mr and Mrs N and Mr and Mrs B’s gardens, which are perpendicular to the development property.
9. Once the development was completed, in August 2024 Mr N contacted the Council’s planning enforcement team. He said the position of the rear window caused overlooking of his property and garden, and that of Mr and Mrs B, and asked the Council to require the owner to replace the window with obscure glazing. The Council replied to explain it could not do this, because it had not imposed any such condition on the planning permission.
10. After further correspondence between Mr N and the Council, Mr N submitted a complaint to the Ombudsman in April 2025. As he had not made a formal complaint to the Council yet, we were unable to accept his complaint at that time and referred him back to the Council. Mr N then made a stage 1 complaint to the Council, to which it responded in June. Addressing each point of Mr N’s complaint in turn, it said:

• its system showed the case officer had placed a site notice on Mr N’s road at the time of the application. However, the Council’s policy was for the officer to also take a photo of the notice as proof it had been erected, and it could not locate any such photo;
• the Council’s design guide says there should be a separation distance of 14 metres between back-to-side developments. Mr and Mrs N’s property exceeded this distance, while Mr and Mrs B’s property was just under 14 metres away. It added that the guide referred to separation distances between buildings;
• the case officer’s report properly addressed the question of overlooking, and considered the impact on several properties specifically, including Mr and Mrs B’s. The report noted the new rear window would not cause a significant increase in overlooking compared to the existing first floor rear windows;
• the case officer had commented on the possibility of obscure glazing, but this was in relation to the new side window, and not the window facing the complainants’ properties;
• the applicant had submitted all the information required for the Council to validate the application; and
• the Council’s power to revoke planning permission, under section 97 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, did not apply once a development was complete.

11. Mr N then submitted a stage 2 complaint, to which the Council responded in August. Again addressing each point of the complaint in turn, the Council said:

• it acknowledged it had not strictly followed its procedure by not keeping a photo of the site notice. However, it did not agree this was evidence it had not publicised the application;
• the case officer had properly assessed the impact of the rear window on neighbouring residential amenity and had made the correct decision. A similar development could be carried out without the need for planning permission, under permitted development rights, which was an important factor, and the new window was no closer to the complainants’ properties than the existing one. The separation distance set out in the design guide was for the distance between properties, not gardens;
• it acknowledged the case officer had not explicitly considered the separation distance in their report. However, the Council was satisfied this had made no difference to their decision;
• the plans submitted by the applicant were adequate to demonstrate what they were proposing, and so the application was not invalid;
• it had highlighted several minor failings to the relevant manager. These were the failure to take or keep a photo of the site notice, delayed responses to some emails, and that the stage 1 response did not address every point Mr N had made.

12. Mr N then resubmitted his complaint to the Ombudsman, which we accepted.

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Legislative background

Planning permission

13. Councils should approve planning applications in line with their local development plan, unless material planning considerations suggest otherwise.
14. Material planning considerations may include:

• access to the highway;
• protection of ecological and heritage assets; and
• the impact on neighbouring amenity.

15. Councils may impose planning conditions to make development acceptable in planning terms. Conditions should be necessary, precise, enforceable and reasonable in all other regards.

Publicity for planning applications

16. Regulations set out the minimum requirements for how councils publicise planning applications. For minor developments, councils must publicise by either a site notice, or serving notice on adjoining owners or occupiers.

Case officers’ reports

17. The courts have made it clear that case officer reports:

• do not need to include every possible planning consideration, but just the principal controversial issues;
• do not need to be perfect, as their intended audience are the parties to the application (the Council and the applicant) who are well versed on the issues; and
• should not be subject to hypercritical scrutiny, and do not merit challenge unless their overall effect is to significantly mislead the decision maker on the key, material issues.

Permitted development

18. Not all development needs planning permission from local planning authorities. Certain developments are deemed permitted, providing they fall within limits set within regulations. This type of development is known as ‘permitted development’.

Site visits

19. Council officers and planning committees are not obliged to carry out site visits before deciding on a planning application. Officers and members will often already have local knowledge of an area and be able to identify the impact of a proposed development using aerial photographs and other tools such as Google Streetview.

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Analysis

20. Similar to the Council, for the sake of clarity I will address each of the three broad points of Mr N’s complaint separately.
21. First, I will explain that the Ombudsman’s role is to review the way a council has made its decisions. We may criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant information, or unduly delayed making a decision. We call this ‘administrative fault’ and, where we find it, we can consider the impact of the fault and ask the council in question to address this.
22. However, we do not make operational or policy decisions on a council’s behalf, or provide a right of appeal against its decisions. If we find a council has acted without fault, then we cannot criticise it, even if the complainant feels it has made the wrong decision. We do not uphold a complaint simply because a person disagrees with something a council has done.
23. In a case such as this, this means it is not for us to decide, for example, whether something is acceptable in planning terms, or whether the Council should have imposed a condition on planning permission it gave. Our role is instead to determine whether the Council gave proper consideration to its powers and duties when making its decision.

Publicising the planning application

24. As I understand it, although the Council decided the planning application in 2023, the complainants were unaware of it until the development actually began in 2024. Mr N says this is because the Council did not display a site notice on their road, which was a legal requirement, and meant they did not have the opportunity to raise objections to the development during the application process.
25. The Council has explained its casework system includes a note which says the case officer erected a site notice on a lamppost on the complainants’ road, a short distance from their properties. However, the Council’s procedure also required the officer to take and keep a photo of the notice, as proof it had been placed, and there is no such photo in the case record. The case officer has since left the Council’s employment and so it cannot be verified what they did.
26. Insofar as the failure to keep a photo does not comply with the Council’s procedure, I consider this to be fault. In isolation this does not represent an injustice to the complainants though – rather, the injustice they claim is from the alleged absence of the notice itself.
27. On this point, the evidence is more ambiguous. It is possible the notice was there, as suggested by the case record, and the complainants unfortunately failed to see it; alternatively, it is possible the case officer recorded they had erected the notice, but for some reason did not actually do so. On the evidence available, I am unable to draw any conclusion on this point.
28. But, either way, I am conscious the case officer’s report went on to consider the impact of the proposed development on local residential amenity, including Mr and Mrs B’s property specifically. I will consider this in more depth in the next section. However, the purpose of the neighbour consultation process is to allow local residents to highlight such issues, and so, even if the complainants had objected, on balance it appears unlikely this would have led the Council to make a different decision.
29. I find fault which did not cause injustice in this element of Mr N’s complaint.

Consideration of separation distances

30. Mr N says the new development has an unacceptable impact on the privacy of the complainants’ homes, particularly their gardens, because it allows unobstructed views from the rear window of the extension.
31. As both parties discussed, the Council’s design guide says there should be a separation distance of at least 14 metres between the back of one property and the side of another, where properties are orientated this way. The Council says the side of Mr and Mrs B’s property is 13.5 metres away from the rear of the development property, meaning it is slightly in breach of this guidance.
32. However, this simple fact does not mean the Council was at fault for granting the application. Planning policies, such as the design guide, exist to provide guidance – they are not hard and fast rules. The fact the guide sets out a separation distance of 14 metres does not mean no development can legally take place inside this boundary.
33. And I am satisfied the Council has properly explained the reason for its decision in this case. As it has pointed out, the separation distance between the properties was already less than 14 metres. The effect of the new development was not to reduce the separation distance, but to increase the height of the development property. Under these circumstances, I consider the Council would be entitled to question the rationality of refusing the extension, or placing conditions on it, because of a breach of the separation distance.
34. In correspondence with the Ombudsman on this point, Mr N acknowledged the existing windows were the same distance away, but said they were screened by trees. Because the new window is higher it is not screened, and therefore provides a direct line of sight into the complainants’ gardens. However, the separation distance is a simple point-to-point measurement between properties; how and whether it should apply is not dependent on the existence of screening.
35. I will also note, at this point, that Mr and Mrs N’s own property is several metres beyond the separation distance set out in the guidelines. While the new window might afford a view into their garden, there is nothing in the design guide to suggest a development should be refused on this basis.
36. In addition to this, and again as the Council has pointed out, the applicant could have carried out a very similar development, with the same effect on the complainants’ properties, under their permitted development rights. I do not agree with Mr N that this is an irrelevant observation – the Council must take careful account of such factors, because of the possibility it might lead to their decision being overturned, should the applicant use their right of appeal.
37. Part of Mr N’s complaint to the Council is that the case officer did not specifically address the separation distance issue in their report. This is true, but the report clearly discusses the question of overlooking, and refers to the point about the existing windows I have explored above. The law does not expect reports of this nature to be forensic, and there is no reason at all to believe a specific mention of the separation distance would have led the case officer to a different conclusion.
38. As I have described, it is not my role in this to make my own decision on the merits of the planning application. I acknowledge Mr N’s reason for opposing what the Council granted, but there is nothing here to suggest the Council did not consider the application properly. What remains is simply a difference of opinion, which is not evidence of fault.
39. I find no fault in this element of Mr N’s complaint.

Validity of the application

40. Mr N alleges the Council accepted the application when it should not, because the applicant had not submitted adequate evidence to clearly document the proposal. He says, when he looked at the application on the Council’s planning portal, only two of the drawings were available to view.
41. I have checked the application on the portal myself and I can see eight different drawings, showing the proposal from different angles, and comparing it to the existing layout. I agree with the Council there is enough information here to understand exactly what the applicant was proposing. It is difficult to see what more evidence they could reasonably have been expected to provide.
42. And as a matter of fact the Council did originally reject the application as invalid, due to some small errors in the submission, but the applicant rectified this within one day, and the Council then wrote to confirm the application was valid. The Council then considered and decided the application as normal. There is nothing at all to suggest the Council decided the application without a full set of information.
43. I do not know when Mr N looked at the application, but given the rest of his complaint, this must logically have been some time after the Council decided it. This being so, I cannot explain why only two drawings were available when he looked at it, but it appears possible this was due to some technical issue at the time. Either way, there is again no evidence of fault here.
44. I find no fault in this element of Mr N’s complaint.

Conclusions

45. The Council was at fault because there is no photo of a site notice on the complainants’ road. This, in itself, does not represent an injustice to them. On the evidence available I cannot draw any conclusion whether the case officer did erect a site notice, but as their report clearly considers the relevant issues anyway, there is no reason to believe this made a difference to the outcome.
46. There is no evidence of fault in how the Council considered the impact of the development on the complainants’ residential amenity. Although there is a minor breach of the separation distance for Mr and Mrs B’s property, the design guide is not an absolute rule, and in any case this breach already existed. There is no breach of the separation distance for Mr and Mrs N’s property. The Council was entitled to decide to grant the application, despite the complainants’ opposition to it.
47. There is also no evidence to support the complainants’ contention the Council considered the application when it was invalid.
48. In his correspondence with the Council, Mr N noted the case officer had raised the possibility of obscure glazing, and questioned why the Council did not impose this as a condition. However, I consider this is a misreading of the report. While the report does mention obscure glazing, this was in relation to a side window serving a bathroom in the new extension, which does not overlook either of the complainants’ properties. The case officer suggested the developer might wish to consider install obscure glazing in the bathroom to protect the privacy of those using it, not any of the neighbours; and so this comment does not imply any omission by the Council for not requiring obscure glazing in the rear window.
49. Mr N has also suggested the Council still has the power to require the developer to install obscure glazing in the rear window, under either section 97 or section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
50. Section 97 allows the Council to revoke or modify planning permission after a grant. However, as the Council has pointed out to Mr N, it only applies while development is ongoing; the Council cannot revoke or modify planning permission for a completed development. In addition, if the developer were to object to the Council’s proposal to use its section 97 powers, the Council would then need the approval of the Secretary of State before using it.
51. Conversely, Section 73 allows a developer to apply for the removal or variation of a condition imposed on planning permission they have received. Therefore, the Council could not simply use this power, but would need the developer to willingly submit an application, to allow the Council to then impose a new restriction on them. It appears unlikely the developer would agree to do this; and this is without considering the fact the Council does not agree obscure glazing is necessary here anyway, a decision it is entitled to.

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Decision

52. I find fault which did not cause injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman