Planning blasted over trolley noise complaint handling

Wednesday 06 January 2021

A panel has criticised the Planning Department for its handling of a St. Peter resident's complaint that trolley noise was causing a "major deterioration" in his quality of life.

The concerns of Allan Liddle, who lives next to St. Peter's Technical Park, centred on the actions of online retailer, Onogo.

The retailer had been using a hardstanding area in the park in breach of their permit, and the subsequent noise was said to be almost continuous seven days a week, with the Board being told at the hearing it had been caused by both moving storage containers and 20 aluminium trolleys.

Mr Liddle initially complained to Environmental Health in August 2019, but received a very limited response.

Pictured: Following a hearing, the Board called the department's actions "contrary to the generally accepted principles of natural justice."

Met by a continued lack of communication after he lodged a formal complaint in November 2019, he launched a second formal complaint in May 2020.

After a continued silence, however, he approached the Complaints Panel for assistance, with a Board Hearing taking place in October 2020, which prompted an apology from Senior Planner, Chris Jones, who said: “We didn’t have the opportunity to do what we should have done, and for that we have apologised.”

In their findings, the Board criticised the department’s actions as "contrary to the generally accepted principles of natural justice”, and that "Mr Liddle had a reasonable expectation that his complaint should have been heard, yet no action had been taken at all to respond."

Pictured: The Board suggested changes to the way Government Departments handle complaints were necessary.

Chair of the Complaints Panel Geoffrey Crill said: “This case was avoidable. The Department had addressed many of the issues which had given rise to Mr Liddle’s complaint, but the lack of contact and the fact that no clear process and timetable was made available to him inevitably led to him feeling as if his complaint had essentially been ignored and this had been compounded by the fact that his second complaint received no response whatsoever from the Department.”

In the hearing, Mr Crill had added: “Clearly the centralised complaints system requires some ‘fine tuning’ and we recommend that there should be someone designated as a point of contact who can support a complainant through the procedure and provide regular updates.”

The Board further recommended that changes be made to the Departmental complaints process so that clear and regular feedback to complainants is an integral element, and urged Planning to consider how imposes conditions on time-limited or reviewed uses of land in future.