Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision-making process when dealing with a planning permission for a development near a playground in his area. There is not enough evidence of Council fault, nor of a significant personal injustice caused Mr X, to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in an area with a playground. The Council received and considered a planning application for a new development next to the playground. Officers granted the development planning permission. Mr X complains the Council:
1. failed to fully consider the risk of overlooking from tall equipment close to the new property boundary when deciding the application;
2. wrongly accepted the applicant’s mitigating measures to allow them to build close to the playground
2. Mr X is concerned the overlooking between the playground and the new development will result in the loss of the play area or its equipment.

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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. 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))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mr X, relevant online planning documents and maps, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council is yet to finalise its decision granting planning permission to the development. The planning committee’s ‘in principle’ decision that permission should be granted depended on officers applying planning conditions and reaching a ‘Section 106’ agreement with the developer, for them to contribute financially to improve local open spaces and play areas.
7. If the Council does issue its decision to grant the planning permission, the outcome which appears likely, we will not investigate.
8. We are not an appeal body. We may only criticise a council’s decision where there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process and but for that fault officers would have reached a different conclusion. So we consider the processes councils have followed to make their decisions. We cannot replace a council’s decision with our own or someone else’s opinion if the decision was reached after following proper process.
9. The Council considered the impact of the development on the surrounding area when assessing the application. Officers noted the location of the playground and that the developer proposed mitigating measures, such as fences and planting, to reduce its impact on the proposed properties and their gardens. The Council considered relevant information to reach its professional judgement to recommend granting of the permission. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s planning processes here to warrant us investigating. We realise Mr X disagrees with the Council’s opinions on the application. But it is not fault for a council to properly reach a view with which someone disagrees.
10. Even if there were fault in the Council’s planning process, we will not investigate. We recognise Mr X is concerned the building of the properties close to the playground will lead to the loss of some or all of its equipment, because it allows overlooking into the properties’ gardens and windows. But this has not happened. The developer is not entitled to alter the playground as part of any planning permission they receive as it is not part of the development site. That the playground will be changed once the properties are inhabited is speculative. We cannot consider as injustices events which have not happened. The location of the development has no significant impact on Mr X’s own property. There is insufficient significant injustice to Mr X from the planning process and likely decision to grant the permission to have justified an investigation.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s planning processes to warrant us investigating; and
• there is insufficient significant injustice caused to him by the matters complained of to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman