The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s planning process because there is a right of appeal to a Planning Inspector.
The complaint
Mr X complains that the Council acted slowly in responding to his planning applications and made unreasonable requests as part of the validation process.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b), as amended) The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister. The Planning Inspector considers appeals about: Delay – usually over eight weeks – by an authority in deciding an application for planning permission A decision to refuse planning permission Conditions placed on planning permission.
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 could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, 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))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X says that he made series of planning applications and prior approval applications where the Council delayed procedures by asking for unnecessary information at the validation stage or failed to provide replies and advice during the planning process.
Any disagreement as to the information required as part of the planning application validation process can ultimately be appealed to a Planning Inspector. The law provides that a planning application may serve a notice on the Council if the applicant believes the Council’s request does not satisfy the statutory tests. If no decision is then made the applicant can appeal to the Planning Inspector for non-determination of the planning application.
This also applies to any planning application which has been validated but undetermined by the statutory deadline.
I appreciate that Mr X also regards the Council’s Planning Officers as unhelpful in providing advice but the Ombudsman would be unlikely to consider that there would be a worthwhile outcome to any investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman