-
Case ref:201101196
-
Date:November 2011
-
Body:West Lothian Council
-
Sector:Local Government
-
Outcome:Some upheld, recommendations
-
Subject:Handling of application (complaints by opponents)
Summary
Mr and Mrs C complained about a number of aspects of the council's handling of a planning application made by neighbours, including that the council failed to carry out neighbour notification correctly by not notifying Mr and Mrs C; failed to properly advertise the planning application; and failed to provide consistent and correct responses to enquiries. Mr and Mrs C also complained that, although they had provided the council on two separate occasions with relevant grounds for work being halted (on the grounds that the development was not being constructed in accordance with the planning permission), the council refused to take action to halt work on the development.
Our investigation confirmed that there was an error in the advertising of the application, and noted that the council had looked into the matter and identified that this was due to an oversight, for which an apology was offered to Mr and Mrs C. We recommended to the council that action should be taken to improve their process to ensure that there was not a recurrence of the error.
Recommendation
We recommended that the council:
• take steps to ensure that the error in publication of the application has been investigated thoroughly and that action is taken to improve their process to ensure that this does not recur.