The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning application for telecommunications equipment. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. The alleged faults by the Council have not caused the complainant a significant injustice.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, says the Council failed to place his objections to a planning application for telecommunications equipment on its planning portal, and failed to properly consider his concerns that the site plans submitted by the applicant were inaccurate.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman can investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. But 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, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and information about the planning application on the Council’s planning website.
I also considered our Assessment Code.
My assessment
We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the extent of the injustice caused to the person complaining as a direct result of the alleged fault(s) by the Council. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
I appreciate Mr X spent time and effort on preparing his objections to this planning application, and contacting the Council with associated enquiries. But the application was ultimately withdrawn. I therefore do not consider the alleged faults by the Council have caused an injustice that warrants the Ombudsman pursuing the matter further.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the alleged faults have not caused him a significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman