Rother District Council Pays Compensation After Watchdog Supports Complaint

Rother District Council is to apologise and pay compensation over its handling of a planning complaint. 

In a recent finding, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) found the council had caused ‘avoidable frustration’ to a man when he raised complaints about a development near his home.

Some years prior to the complaint, the site, which falls within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, had been granted planning permission for use as a business or commercial premises with ‘some limited retail use.’ 

But the complainant – referred to in the LGSCO Report as Mr X – had raised concerns with the council that the site was breaching its planning conditions in a variety of ways and (over several months) asked for it to take enforcement action. 

Following these complaints, which included concerns that the site was being primarily used for retail, the council held an investigation but did not end up taking any formal enforcement action prior to the matter being raised with the LGSCO.

While the LGSCO did not take a view on whether breaches had occurred, the ombudsman found the council had failed to properly communicate its position in its correspondence with the complainant.

In their report, the ombudsman said:

“The evidence I saw did not show the council communicated either clearly or promptly with Mr X about its enforcement investigation. 

“If the council considered ‘use’ of the site ‘closed’ when it told Mr X it could not pursue a non-existent use, it should have made this clear. It did not. 

“Instead, it said it could act if there was an unauthorised use and Mr X continued to write about use of the site.

"If that correspondence was inadequate to trigger an enforcement investigation, the council should have told Mr X.

“The council did not make its requirements clear and left Mr X writing in the belief and with the reasonable expectation that it would further investigate use of the site.

"I therefore found the council fell below acceptable administrative standards and was at fault.

“The council’s failure to act on Mr X’s continued correspondence about use of the site would have caused him avoidable distress and frustration.

"Mr X also continued to live with uncertainty about whether the site was in unauthorised use and, if so, how it affected his home.”

The ombudsman also found fault in the way the council had approached another of the issues raised by the complainant. 

The complainant had reported an unauthorised development on land near, and in the same ownership, as the main site.

The council investigated his report, confirmed that there was unauthorised development during a site visit and began the process of taking enforcement action.

On legal advice, however, the council opted to give the developer an opportunity to remove the unauthorised works before taking any formal action.

According to the ombudsman, the council said it had received an email from the developer’s agent advising that the unauthorised development was removed and afterwards considered the matter resolved.

The ombudsman found fault in this finding, however, as the council did not take any action to verify the removal, nor give the complainant the opportunity to put across their views.

In light of the ombudsman’s findings, the council has agreed to apologise, pay £300 in compensation and to begin an enforcement investigation into the use of the site.

A Rother District Council spokesperson said:

“We accept the ombudsman’s finding that we did not communicate sufficiently in this case and for the delays in handling the complaints received.

"We have apologised for the frustration caused by our poor communication and the delay in the complaints handling. 

“An enforcement investigation into alleged breaches of planning control arising from use of the site is underway.

“Although the ombudsman did not recommend any service improvements, the council is undertaking a review into its handling of planning complaints and will update the ombudsman of the outcome of this.”