Home > Publications > Selected cases — Parliamentary > Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - October 2000 to March 2001 - Case No. C175/01 and C118/01
Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - October 2000 to March 2001
Volume 4 - 2nd REPORT - SESSION 2001-2002
Chapter 2
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Case No: C.75/01
Alleged failure to provide information relevant to a home purchase
Mr and Mrs P complained that the Environment Agency (the Agency) had failed to provide their solicitors with information relevant to the purchase of their present home, as a neighbouring abattoir had been spreading waste on land adjoining the property and had applied to the Agency for registration of that activity. The Ombudsman found that the Agency had fulfilled the requirements of the relevant regulations as to the public registration of the information they had received from the abattoir. The Agency could have responded more helpfully than they did to the solicitors’ enquiry, but the Ombudsman did not conclude that the terms of that enquiry and the Agency’s reply were maladministrative.
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Case No: C.118/01
Handling of objections to a consent to discharge effluent
Mr N complained that the Environment Agency (the Agency) had failed to address concerns he had expressed to them in correspondence from March to July 1999 regarding an application by a neighbouring rest home for a consent to discharge sewerage effluent into a culvert running along the length of his property. The Ombudsman found that the discharge in question was a relatively small one, and the Environment Agency had to act proportionately. Nevertheless, the Agency had led Mr N reasonably to expect that if they agreed with him about the potential effect of the discharge they would refuse consent. Despite that, there was no indication that when deciding to grant the consent they had seriously considered Mr N’s objections, or possessed the information that would have enabled them reliably to do so. Furthermore, there was some indication that they had been content to ignore Mr N’s objections on the basis of an unjustifiably narrow interpretation of their responsibilities. The Agency had exacerbated their failure fully to address the numerous points raised in Mr N’s letters by delays in replying to those letters. Also the records of their decision-making processes were imperfect. The Chief Executive of the Environment Agency offered her apologies for the shortcomings in their correspondence with Mr N and agreed that officers would meet him to discuss his concerns; she also undertook to review the recording of details of decisions relating to applications for discharge consents.
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