Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning application for a development next to the complainant’s property. It is reasonable to expect the complainant to have contacted us sooner, and there is insufficient evidence that fault in the decision-making process has affected the planning outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the Council granting planning permission for her neighbour’s development which she says is attached to her own property and affects her amenity.

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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 can 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. So, we do not start an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, 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))

4. And 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)
5. It is also not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
6. Similarly, we conduct proportionate assessments of cases; closing them when we consider we have enough evidence to make a sound decision. This means we do not try to answer every single question a complainant may have about what the Council did.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered:
• information provided by Ms X and the Council, which included their complaint correspondence.
• information about the neighbour’s planning applications, available on the Council’s planning website.
• the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The 12-month time restriction, detailed in paragraph 4 above, appears to apply to the complaint. This is because the application was approved in mid‑October 2023, yet Ms X did not contact the Ombudsman until July 2025. I acknowledge Ms X experienced some technical difficulties with submitting her original complaint to the Council, and then there were some delays in receiving the Council’s complaint responses. But I also note it took Ms X approximately six months to complain to the Council about the application decision, a further four months to escalate her complaint to Stage 2, and then a further three months to contact the Ombudsman following receipt of the Council’s Stage 2 response. On balance, I do not consider there are good reasons to exercise discretion to consider this late complaint now.
9. And even if this time restriction did not apply, it is important to highlight the Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in how the Council made its decision, and we consider if any fault we may find is likely to have affected the outcome or caused the complainant a significant injustice. In other words, we will only pursue a complaint if there is clear evidence of fault in the way a decision was made which, but for that fault, is likely to have led to a different planning decision or a more positive outcome for the complainant.
10. I consider there is insufficient evidence that fault has affected the Council’s decision on the application, so the Ombudsman would not start an investigation. In reaching this view, I am mindful that:
• the scheme was amended from its original submission in response to objections of overlooking from neighbouring properties.
• Ms X’s objections to the proposal are summarised in the officer’s report.
• the officer’s report goes on to consider the design of the development and its impact on the general amenity of neighbouring residents. The officer was entitled to reach their own professional view on the impact of the development, even if Ms X disagrees with the judgement reached.
• although the impact of noise from the development was not referred to in the officer’s report, I am satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the outcome of the application is likely to have been the same even if this matter had been taken into account.
• if the neighbour does not have permission to attach the development to Ms X’s property, then that would be a private, civil matter for those two interested parties to resolve.
11. If Ms X believes the development has not been constructed in accordance with the approved plans, then it is open to her report this to the Council’s planning enforcement team.
12. As we are not investigating the substantive issue being complained about (the approval of the neighbour’s planning application), it would not be a good use of our resources to investigate any associated concerns about the Council’s complaint handling in isolation.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is reasonable to expect her to have complained to us sooner, and there is insufficient evidence that fault in the decision-making process has affected the planning outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman