A MOBILE phone mast approved by default led to Macclesfield Borough Council being hauled before the Local Government Ombudsman.
The council was found to be at fault over the error which led to the mast being put up, because it failed to lodge an objection in the allotted timescale.
The mistake over dates meant that the council lost the opportunity to refuse permission.
Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex, said in a report the council had counted the 56 days it had to refuse the application from the date it was stamped as arriving in the planning department.
The refusal notice was sent on the last possible date, but the applicant had proof that the council had received the application on the day before it had arrived in the planning department.
The refusal notice was therefore ineffective, and the mast was constructed as having ‘deemed consent’.
After similar failures by councils over the past few years, the Local Government Ombudsman issued a special report in June giving guidance to local authorities in England about problems with ‘prior approval’ applications for telecommunications masts.
The council was reported to the ombudsman after a complaint by a resident that planners failed to respond to an August 2005 application for a telecommunications mast within the statutory 56-day time limit, so losing its chance to refuse permission close to his home where the council considered it would cause a traffic hazard.
When the council realised its mistake over the dates, it failed to tell the people who had objected to the mast. They only became aware when the mast was erected.
The ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice, and the council has accepted the recommendation that it should pay compensation of £300.
The council has also been ordered to put in place a system to ensure this mistake does not happen again.
