Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning enforcement issue. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and given the Planning Inspectorate’s decision that the neighbour’s development does not require planning permission, we could not achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mr X.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council has failed to deal with breaches of planning control by a neighbour. He is unhappy the Council issued an enforcement notice but has not taken action to force the neighbour to comply with it. He also complains the Council has failed to deal with a highways matter and noise pollution caused by a dog barking.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• 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, 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))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council investigated Mr X’s reports of possible breaches of planning control by the neighbour and issued an enforcement notice requiring the alleged breaches to cease. The neighbour appealed against the enforcement notice to the Planning Inspectorate and the Planning Inspectorate upheld the appeal and quashed the enforcement notice. This is on the basis the neighbour’s actions do not amount to a breach of planning control.
6. It was not fault for the Council to place a hold on further enforcement action while the Planning Inspectorate considered the appeal and now they have decided the neighbour’s development does not require planning permission the Council has no basis to take any further action. We cannot therefore achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mr X by investigating the matter further.
7. While Mr X also complains about a highways matter and noise caused by a barking dog, we will not investigate these issues separately. This is because the Council has rightly referred Mr X to the local highway authority and its environmental health team to investigate the issues. As a borough council the Council has no power to investigate issues which rest with the local highways authority and I have seen no evidence to show Mr X has reported the noise issue to the relevant team or that he has complained about the way it dealt with his report.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and we could not achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mr X by investigating further.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman