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Your neighbour's planning application

This fact sheet is aimed primarily at people who have concerns about the council approving a neighbour’s planning application and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.

I am unhappy about the council’s decision to grant planning permission to my neighbour. Can the Ombudsman help me?

Yes, in some circumstances. The law doesn’t allow you to appeal against the council’s decision to us or any other body, and it isn’t our role to say whether permission should have been granted or not.

But, if you believe that the council did something wrong in the way it went about deciding the application and that it caused you problems, then you can complain to us.

However, we will not uphold your complaint if it turns out that the council followed the proper procedures, relevant legislation and guidance and considered the objections made but came to a decision you disagree with.

We cannot normally consider a complaint about an application until a decision has been made. This is because even if a council has done something wrong, we do not know until that point whether the fault will affect the outcome.

If you want to object to a planning application, you need to write to the council as soon as possible giving your reasons why you think the application should not be approved.

How do I complain?

You should normally complain to the council first. Councils often have more than one stage in their complaints procedure and you will usually have to complete all stages before we will look at your complaint.

Then, if you are unhappy with the outcome, or the council is taking too long to look into the matter – we think 12 weeks is reasonable – you can complain to us. This is required, even if the development is being built. It is unlikely that any planning permission already granted will be changed by an investigation by either the council or us, but steps may be taken to reduce the effects of the development on you if fault is found. See 'What happens if the Ombudsman finds that the council was at fault?' below.

You should normally make your complaint to us within 12 months of realising that the council has done something wrong.

For more information on how to complain, visit our contact us page or complete an online complaint form.

If you can consider my complaint what will the Ombudsman look for? 

If the council has done something wrong we look at what effect this had and what problems this led to for you. For example, is the fault likely to have made a difference to the outcome of the application? Some faults we might find are that the council:

  • did not notify you of an application although the law or its neighbour notification policy says it should
  • did not take your objections into account (this is not the same as not agreeing with your objections)
  • considered the application under the wrong procedure (such as delegating the decision to an officer when it should have been referred to a committee of councillors)
  • did not take into account, or failed to give proper reasons for not following, the relevant law, policy or guidance
  • did not give reasons for its decision to approve an application, or
  • made a decision based on inaccurate, incomplete or irrelevant planning considerations.

What happens if the Ombudsman finds that the council was at fault?

It depends on the fault and what the consequences are for you. We cannot force the council to overturn the planning decision or demolish the development, even if it overlooks your property or blocks your light.

  • If such harmful effects were caused by the council’s fault, we may recommend steps to reduce them.
  • If the development is not yet built or completed, it may be possible to agree minor changes to the scheme such as alterations to the opening of windows or doors or the provision of obscure glazing or an acoustic screen. This may not be possible, in which case we may ask a council to make you a payment to cover the cost of new planting or screening on your property.
  • If mitigation of the effects of the flawed decision is not possible, and it is clear that if there had been no fault the planning application would not have been approved, we may recommend a financial payment to remedy any loss of amenity. 
  • Where we find fault with the council’s procedures we will often recommend that the council introduces changes so that the same problem does not occur again in the future.

Examples of some complaints we have considered

Mrs X’s neighbour applied to the council for planning permission to extend their property. Mr X hand delivered an objection letter to the council, raising concerns about the impact on her home. Due to an error, Mrs X’s letter could not be scanned onto the council’s system and the letter was not given to the case officer until after planning permission had already been granted.
We found there was fault with how the council dealt with Mrs X’s objections. However, we did not consider that the fault affected the outcome of the planning application as the case officer did still consider the impact on Mrs X’s home. The council had also already apologised and made changes to its system to avoid a similar problem in the future which was a suitable remedy in the circumstances. We did ask the council to apologise to Mrs X for the significant delays dealing with her complaint.
The council received an application from Mr X’s neighbour to extend their home. The council granted planning permission, however Mr X complained it had not properly considered the impact on his property. We found fault by the council as it had failed to consider whether the extension would have an overbearing impact or have a negative impact on Mr X’s outlook. These were relevant planning considerations and overbearing is mentioned as a consideration in the council’s design guide. We decided that it is unlikely the council would have granted planning permission for the extension in its current form had these matters been properly considered. It was not possible to mitigate the impact and therefore we asked the council to apologise and pay Mr X £1,750 to acknowledge the permanent loss of amenity he has suffered. We also asked the Council to remind officers of the importance of demonstrating their considerations of the impact of a development.

Other sources of information

Our fact sheets give some general information about the most common type of complaints we receive but they cannot cover every situation. If you are not sure whether we can look into your complaint, please contact us.

We provide a free, independent and impartial service. We consider complaints about the administrative actions of councils and some other authorities. We cannot question what a council has done simply because someone does not agree with it. If we find something has gone wrong, such as poor service, service failure, delay or bad advice and that a person has suffered as a result we aim to get it put right by recommending a suitable remedy.

October 2020