25/04/21 

Complaint To The LGO

Our complaint against Chelmsford City Council has moved on to it’s final stage. the Local Government Ombudsman. You can read the full complaint and the Stage I response here.

We held out little hope of a meaningful response from the council in Stages I and II. Regular readers will be aware that much of our complaint was against senior council officials, and they were responsible for the council’s rather unhelpful and arrogant responses.

The LGO is a different matter, and is fully independent. They have quite wide ranging powers, and can impose sanctions against a council if any wrongdoing can be proven.

Our complaint is 108 pages long, and is accompanied by nearly 50 documents submitted as evidence. At this point, we will not be releasing or publishing any of our evidence bundle, but it is comprehensive and quite damning.

Our case is simply that due planning process has not been followed and that the council have not acted impartially or lawfully. We can demonstrate fault in the decision-making process.

The timescale for a response from the LGO is around 20 weeks, and although this is a way off, we are really looking forward to holding the council to account. We are certain that the council will continue with their “delay and deny” policy, but we will see this through to it’s conclusion, and then regroup.

In addition to the LGO complaint, we have another complaint against a councillor in the system, we’ll tell you more once the council has responded.

KBO