Decision Report 201508565

Summary

Mrs C applied to the park authority for a repair grant; it was initially refused, but later an offer of funding was made. However, the park authority withdrew the offer of funding. Mrs C complained about this, and that the park authority would not change information they gave to applicants.

The park authority's conditions of grant stated that building work must not start before a signed copy of a grant offer has been received by the park authority, and that the park authority reserved the right to withhold the grant if any conditions were not complied with. As Mrs C's building work started before she was offered the grant, the park authority withdrew the offer. We found that while the timing of this was unfortunate from Mrs C's perspective, that did not invalidate the conditions of the grant.

The park authority explained that the circumstances in which funding became available to Mrs C were unusual, and they explained the importance of not raising applicants expectations falsely; we found these explanations were reasonable. In addition, the park authority said that, in future, they would consider Mrs C's point about the wording of their documentation where possible. We did not uphold Mrs C's complaints.