The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s planning application process because there is not enough evidence of fault.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council charged him for a planning permission application that was not necessary. He said the information provided on the Council’s website was unclear. Mr X wants the Council to refund the fee.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council charges a fee when individuals apply for planning permission. Fees for planning permission are set out in The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012 (amended 2017). Guidance indicates that fees cannot be refunded once issued unless under specific circumstances. Not all development needs planning permission. This is called permitted development.
Mr X applied for planning permission for an extension after reading the Council’s website. Mr X paid the Council a fee for this service. After reviewing his application, the Council wrote to Mr X and said planning permission was not required.
Mr X requested a refund of the fee. The Council wrote to Mr X and explained it would not refund the fee because it had processed the application which took time. It agreed that planning permission was complex and explained that was why it offered the pre-application checks as a service. It said it was the responsibility of the individual to identify whether permission was required. There is insufficient evidence of fault in how the Council considered Mr X’s request to refund the fee, therefore we will not investigate this complaint further.
Mr X says that not all the information about the planning permission process was available on the Council website when he made his application. Mr X could have contacted the Council if he could not access all the information he required before submitting his application. There is insufficient evidence the Council was at fault to justify further investigation.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman