The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a planning enforcement notice issued by the Council. This is because it would have been reasonable for Mrs X to appeal against the notice.
The complaint
The complainant, Mrs X, complains the Council wrongly issued her a planning enforcement notice despite having confirmed there was no breach of planning control. She says this is inconsistent with the Council’s approach to other similar cases and complains she had to apply for planning permission to resolve the issue, at a cost of £578.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’.
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 A planning enforcement notice.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The injustice Mrs X claims stems from the Council’s issue of the enforcement notice. If Mrs X disagreed with this and felt there was no breach of planning control it would have been reasonable for her to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. Mrs X wants the Council to revoke the enforcement notice and this is an outcome the Planning Inspectorate could have achieved.
However, instead of appealing to the Planning Inspectorate Mrs X applied to the Council for planning permission, which the Council granted. It was Mrs X’s choice to pay the £578 fee to determine the planning application and this provided her with the benefit of having a formal grant of planning permission for the development to which the enforcement notice and her complaint relates. We would not therefore recommend the Council refunds the fee.
While Mrs X considers it unfair that the Council issued her an enforcement notice but has not done so in other cases we would not investigate this point further. This is because any benefit to other residents from not being issued with an enforcement notice is not a significant injustice to Mrs X.
Mrs X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with her complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it would have been reasonable for Mrs X to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman