Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s planning enforcement actions for a site on his road. Even if there has been fault by the Council, the matters complained of do not cause Mr X sufficient significant injustice to justify us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives on a rural road. There is a piece land next to the road where the levels have been raised over several years. The site has been the subject of planning enforcement, which is ongoing.
2. Mr X complains the Council has failed to follow directives from a Planning Inspectorate decision regarding the ground level works on the site.
3. Mr X says the land works block a watercourse, in an area which is extremely prone to flooding. He is concerned his property will flood and says other residents have similar concerns.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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:

• 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), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mr X, relevant online maps and images of the area, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X has provided photographs of the site where the land levels have been raised, images dating from 2016 to 2018. It appears the matter has been the subject of Council enforcement action and a later Planning Inspectorate report. Mr X considers the Council is not following the requirements of that Inspectorate decision within its ongoing planning enforcement action.
7. Even if there has been fault by the Council in how it has acted in response to the Inspectorate’s report, we will not investigate. Mr X’s property is over 300 metres from the site. There has been, and there is, no visual impact on his property’s amenity from the works on the site which would amount to an injustice. Mr X’s main claimed injustice is the possible impact of the site’s ground level works on flooding in the area, including to his property. But Mr X says previous flooding has happened in years prior to the start of those works. There has not been a flood after the site level works. We cannot make findings of injustices where the events which could cause them have not happened. We recognise Mr X, and other residents, have worries about future flooding. But worry about what might happen because of the enforcement site works does not in itself amount to a significant injustice. There is insufficient significant personal injustice stemming from the matters complained of here to warrant an investigation.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the matters complained of do not cause sufficient significant personal injustice to him to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman