Staffordshire County Council (25 018 946)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 22 Jun 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response as statutory consultee to a planning application. There is not enough evidence of personal injustice to Mr X to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the Council’s response as statutory consultee to a planning application for new houses close to his home. He says the Council’s response is factually wrong, incomplete and not in line with its Education Infrastructure Contributions Policy, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) or Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Regulation 122.
- Mr X also complains the Council failed to secure funded primary or early years mitigation and proposed sending all Section 106 education money to a secondary school outside the village.
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 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
- No decision has been made on the planning application. If Mr X disagrees with the Council’s response as statutory consultee, he can make further objections to the Local Planning Authority (LPA) outlining his concerns.
- Mr X says the Council’s actions have caused him stress and to lose confidence in the Council. He also says its actions leave his village without school places; early years provision and special education need support.
- However, Mr X has not been prevented from objecting to the Council’s response to the LPA’s consultation. And the LPA has not yet decided the application. Therefore, I do not consider Mr X has suffered a significant personal injustice, and we have no consent for him to complain for anyone else.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we do not consider he has suffered a significant personal injustice which warrants an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman