Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s delay in publishing a planning document and an alleged breach of planning control. This is mainly because a significant part of the complaint is late without good reason to investigate it now.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
1. published a woodland management plan on its public planning portal too late for him to use it in his own planning application and subsequent appeal to the Planning Inspectorate;
2. admitted it had not enforced a section 106 legal agreement and said there was no requirement for it to do so; and
3. refused his request for a meeting
2. Mr X says he has experienced avoidable financial loss.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. 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)
4. 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))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. In July 2024 the Council told Mr X it had now published the woodland management plan on its website. Mr X therefore had access to this document for sixteen months before bringing his complaint to us, in November 2025. I can see no good reason why Mr X could not have complained to us sooner if he believed the document was material to his planning application and the Council was at fault for not publishing it earlier. I will therefore not consider events before November 2024.
8. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the Council. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures.
9. Mr X says the Council’s refusal of his planning application, and the Planning Inspector’s dismissal of his appeal, turned on the Council’s failure to enforce the conditions of a section 106 agreement. We cannot reasonably say what, if any, difference it might have made if the Council had tried to enforce this agreement. Any injustice to Mr X is therefore speculative. We will not investigate this element of Mr X’s complaint.
10. Mr X is unhappy the Council did not respond to his request for a meeting to discuss his land. It is not possible to say what the outcome of any such meeting might be. Any injustice to Mr X is therefore speculative, with no evidence it would be significant. We will not investigate this element of Mr X’s complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because part of it is late without good enough reason to investigate it now. There is insufficient evidence that Mr X has suffered significant personal injustice to warrant an investigation into the other matters he complains about.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman