Originally Posted by
Deltasierra010
The local authority are not the problem
I have been the planning portfolio holder, and hence in charge of the planning enforcement service, when a complaint came in which really one would have preferred to ignore (for all sorts of reasons, including possibly some racism, which I won't go into). But it was reasonably clear that if the council didn't follow through the complaint exactly to the letter of the law we'd be taken to JR by the complainant, and the court (apart from being expensive) would then order the council to follow the letter of the law anyway.
So yes, sometimes the local authority are not themselves the cause of the problem, it's just that they've not really got any option but to investigate complaints and take action if a breach of planning law is found, even if the council thinks the public interest would be better served by ignoring the complaint.