The ombudsman, Patricia Thomas, ruled against the council on the grounds of maladministration causing injustice after she investigated four complaints made against it about the planning of the nursery.
The complainants, who all live near the setting, which had been two residential homes until 2001 when the council granted planning permission for a nursery, said the application had been 'wrongly decided'. They also alleged that the planning officer had been biased in favour of the applicant and that he had taken steps to ensure the application could be decided by him under delegated powers.
The four complainants, whose real names cannot be used for legal reasons, are Mr and Mrs Alison, who live next door to the new nursery and have another nursery on the other side of their house; Mr Collins, who lives on the other side of the new nursery; Mrs Beatty, owner of the established nursery who lives on the premises with her husband; and Mr Durand, who lives close by. The Alisons and Mr Collins said they suffered from noise from the children at the new nursery, and all complainants said they were being 'adversely affected by danger from traffic at pick-up times, and the noise from this activity'.
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