Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s involvement with a planning application for a classroom at a school in his area. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence of any fault causing injustice to Mr X which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom shall call Mr X, complains about the Council’s responses to planning applications as a statutory highway consultee. He says the Council has failed to acknowledge existing and future traffic problems in the area where he lives.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered all the information which Mr X submitted with his complaint. I have also considered the Council’s response and Mr X has commented on the draft decision.

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What I found

4. Mr X says the Council received a planning application to consider in November 2019. He says the County Council has in the past raised no objections to proposals by schools in his area which he says have increased traffic problems. He wanted the plans to be considered by the local borough council which is the democratic body representing residents. The County Council is not the planning authority in Mr X’s area. The borough council is the local planning authority and the County Council highways authority is a statutory consultee on planning matters.
5. This means that Mr X’s concerns about local democracy were misplaced because the highway authority does not determine applications. It can only give its professional view on one aspect of the proposals. Any objections Mr X wished to make would be to the borough council planning authority, not the highway authority.
6. Mr X said in his complaint that the Council has not objected to proposals at schools in his area on three separate applications in the past six years. He says it will not accept that there is a parking problem associated with the schools. The Council says that each planning application referred to it is treated on its individual merits. Its comments related to each separate development and their impact based on County traffic policy and accident statistics compiled by the Police.
7. The Ombudsman cannot investigate complaints about plans which have not yet been determined. Mr X had an opportunity to object to the previous plans when they were considered by the planning authority. The Council gave its advice to the authority based on the merits of each application. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to question the merits of a decision taken without fault. If he believed that the previous planning decisions were flawed Mr X could have complained to us at the time.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence of any fault causing injustice to Mr X which would warrant an investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman