Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council considered a planning application for a site close to the complainant’s home. We have not seen enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council failed to consider the known shortfall in parking when it approved an application to change the use of an existing site to a new business which she says attracts many customers daily.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Ms X and on the Council’s website.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Planning controls the design, location and appearance of development and its impact on public amenity. Planning controls are not designed to protect private rights or interests. The Council may grant planning permission with conditions to control the use or development of land.
6. Local Planning Authorities must consider each application it receives on its own merits and decide it in line with their local planning policies, unless material considerations suggest otherwise. Material considerations concern the use and development of land in the public interest and include issues such as overlooking, traffic generation and noise. People’s comments on planning and land use issues linked to development proposals will be material considerations. Councils must take such comments into account but do not have to agree with those comments.
7. A council planning officer will normally visit the application site and write a report assessing the proposed development. The report will refer to relevant planning policies and the planning history of the site; summarise peoples’ comments; and consider the main planning issues for deciding the application. The assessment often involves the planning officer in balancing and weighing the planning issues and judging the merits of the proposed development. The report usually ends with a recommendation to grant or refuse planning permission.
8. A senior planning officer will consider most reports, but some go to the council’s planning committee for councillors to decide the application. The senior officer (or councillors at committee) may disagree with the case officer’s recommendation because it is for the decision maker to decide the weight given to any material consideration when deciding a planning application. Development usually gets planning permission if the council considers it is in line with planning policy and finds no planning reason(s) of enough weight to justify a refusal.
9. The planning officer prepared a report for the Council’s planning committee. The report shows:
• The highway authority did not object to the proposal.
• The objections from the parish council, ward councillors and residents.
• Consideration of traffic and parking issues; and
• The extant planning permission from 2023 for the site for an office and a café which was of a significantly greater scale.
10. The planning committee considered the proposal. It decided to approve the application subject to conditions. One of the conditions stated that no part of the development shall be occupied until the access arrangements shown in the drawings provided have been implemented in full.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we have not seen enough evidence of fault in the way the Council considered the planning application to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman