Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the conduct of two Council planning officers during an application for a development near her property and how the Council responded to her complaints. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in the planning process to warrant investigation. There is insufficient significant personal injustice to Mrs X from the officer conduct complained of, nor from any other issue raised, to warrant investigation. We do not investigate council complaint‑handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives near land which received planning permission for a large development. She complains:
1. two planning officers failed to carry out their work on the application with the required level of diligence, competence, integrity, impartiality and professionalism;
2. the Council failed to properly consider and respond to her complaints.
2. Mrs X says the officers’ failures directly contributed to the Council’s planning committee approving the application. She says the planning decision results in a development which will ruin the local landscape, affect the use of public rights of way, blight lives with construction traffic and noise and decimate wildlife. She says the planning process has caused extreme stress. Mrs X says she has been left disillusioned by local democracy and has to live with a decision based on incorrect and misleading information and the result of flawed and biased processes. Mrs X says on a national level the development will cause loss of quality agricultural land, leading to increased food imports.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mrs X, relevant online maps and planning documents, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X complains about the actions and inactions of two Council planning officers involved in the report which recommended approval for the application, and at the committee meeting. She says the officers’ recommendation in the planning report to approve the development ‘directly contributed’ to the committee’s decision to grant it permission. The role of the planning officers complained of was to assess the application in the relevant planning context, including any material objections to it, to make a recommendation to the committee.
6. We recognise Mrs X disputes many aspects of the officer’s assessment, which she considers resulted in them making a recommendation to the committee to grant the permission which they should not have made. But even if there was fault by the planning officers as claimed, the decision‑making body here was the Council’s planning committee, not the officers. Mrs X is correct to say the officers’ planning recommendation ‘directly contributed’ to the committee’s decision, but that does not mean their report determined or dictated that decision. It was for the committee to make their own planning decision, based not only on the officer report, but also the relevant information from consultees, objectors and supporters. The committee had that evidence, information and opinion before them when they made their decision. This included the detailed representations from people opposing the application, including Mrs X. If the committee had been dissatisfied with any part of the application and considered points made by objectors or other consultees outweighed the officers’ recommendation, they could have voted to refuse, or deferred the decision to gather more information. We recognise it would be frustrating to Mrs X and other objectors that insufficient Members of the committee were persuaded by their comments to refuse the application. But that was a decision the committee was entitled to make. There is not enough evidence of fault in the process here to warrant us investigating.
7. Mrs X considers the planning process, as committee Members were acting against an officer recommendation, discouraged Members from refusing the application. A Member seeking a planning refusal where the recommendation is to give permission would need to set out their material reasons for refusal. Any decision must be supported by robust and defensible material planning reasons. An unsupported refusal decision leaves a planning authority open to challenge at appeal and to a likely valid claim of costs by the applicant, funds which would come from the public purse. Clear and valid planning reasons are a key requirement of the planning decision-making process. There is not enough evidence of fault for the committee’s process to require them to warrant investigation.
8. The core injustices Mrs X claims stem from the committee’s decision to grant the planning application, and the short- and longer-term impacts of the resulting development. But her complaint is about the conduct of two planning officers. As it was not the officers who decided to permit the application, there is no significant personal injustice to Mrs X relating to the development itself stemming directly from the officers’ actions or inactions which warrant us investigating.
9. Mrs X claims injustice caused to her by the planning process, saying it has caused her extreme stress and disillusionment. Anyone involved with and personally invested in a planning process, whether for or against an application, will be caused stress by the process, and more stress and disappointment if the result is not what they sought. There is insufficient avoidable injustice caused to Mrs X from the planning process to warrant us investigating.
10. Mrs X also says the development will cause loss of quality agricultural land, leading to increased food imports for the country. But the loss of the land for agriculture has no more impact on her than it does on any other person in the country, so does not amount to a significant personal injustice to her.
11. Mrs X complains about the Council’s complaint responses. We do not investigate councils’ internal complaint processes in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in the planning process to justify investigation; and
• there is insufficient significant personal injustice to Mrs X stemming directly from the planning officers’ actions, nor from any other matter complained of, to warrant investigation; and
• we do not investigate council complaint handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman