{"id":5432,"date":"2013-02-15T15:57:06","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T15:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=5432"},"modified":"2013-02-15T15:57:06","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T15:57:06","slug":"ombudsman-criticises-council-over-planning-flaws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=5432","title":{"rendered":"Ombudsman criticises council over planning flaws"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Local Government Ombudsman has criticised Bolton Council for flaws in the way it approved a planning application for a large residential development next to a man\u2019s home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Planning Portal writes<\/span>:
\nNeither the council\u2019s planning committee nor the complainant appreciated that the property next to him would be two metres higher than his, or that the developer would remove the trees covered by tree preservation orders (TPOs) along his boundary.<\/p>\n

The watchdog concluded that had these issues been raised in a proper manner, the local authority would have taken action to protect the complainant\u2019s privacy.<\/p>\n

The watchdog found a number of faults in the council\u2019s handling of the planning application including deficiencies in the Case Officer\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

This raised the issue of impact on neighbours, but did not address it; it did not mention the rise in land levels and include levels on existing residential land, and did not provide information about which protected trees would be removed.<\/p>\n

The planning process was deficient because the Environment Agency was not consulted on flood risk issues and no account was taken of Government guidance on flood protection.<\/p>\n

Because of these failures, the planning committee did not have the information it needed to make a fully-informed decision, said the watchdog. And because of the council\u2019s failure to consult the Environment Agency, the wrong flood risk standards were applied to the scheme\u2019s drainage.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman recommended the council should:<\/p>\n

\u00b7 apologise to the complainant, and meet him to discuss how it might now help restore his privacy and fund agreed work up to a cost of \u00a31,000<\/p>\n

\u00b7 pay him \u00a3500 for his time and trouble in bringing his complaint<\/p>\n

\u00b7 review its policies and procedures to ensure it takes account of material planning considerations in future<\/p>\n

\u00b7 update its internal guidance on consultations to include all statutory consultees.<\/p>\n

Read the LGO news release at<\/span>: LINK<\/a><\/p>\n

Search Planning Portal<\/span> : LINK<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Local Government Ombudsman has criticised Bolton Council for flaws in the way it approved a planning application for a large residential development next to a man\u2019s home. Planning Portal writes: Neither the council\u2019s planning committee nor the complainant appreciated … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5433,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5432\/revisions\/5433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}