Stafford Borough Council complaints more than treble amid planning delays

Complaints made to Stafford Borough Council have more than trebled in a year, with most relating to the authority’s development service.

A report to the council’s Resources Scrutiny Committee showed there were 65 Stage 1 complaints in 2025/26, compared with 19 in 2024/25.

Stage 1 complaints involve a response by an officer responsible for the service provided.

The number of Stage 2 complaints, which provide a response from a chief officer if the complainant is not satisfied with the Stage 1 response, rose from eight in 2024/25 to 30 in 2025/26.

The vast majority of complaints related to the council’s development service, which includes planning.

There were 48 Stage 1 complaints and 22 Stage 2 complaints about the development service during 2025/26, up from nine and four respectively in the previous year.

During 2025/26 there were also complaints about wellbeing, operations, finance and regulatory services.

Five complaints were considered by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman during 2025/26, the same number as the previous year. The Ombudsman did not find the council to be at fault in any of the cases considered during the past year.

A report to the latest Resources Scrutiny Committee meeting said

“In the vast majority of instances the Stage 2 complaints investigated related to the outcome of decisions, or the handling of planning applications made in accordance with the council’s working procedures, guidelines and policies and therefore no recommended action was required.

“Half of the planning complaints (11) were submitted by one objector to a development. However a number of complaints also raised issues with delays in response times and the quality of communication received by the complainant.

“Unfortunately, the planning service has received large amounts of applications over a sustained period leading to backlogs in multiple areas which has led to frustrations with agents and applicants culminating in an increase in complaints.

“The changes to the housing land supply and that we no longer have a five-year supply has led to a number of major speculative applications, which again has caused frustration within the community, resulting in a higher number of complaints.

“The team have been undertaking an improvement plan to find new and improved ways of working to support with the reduction of backlogs alongside employing additional resource via agencies.

“There have been updated protocols to combat barriers within the process and a new customer charter has been developed and will be cascaded imminently setting out what the levels and quality of service that customers can expect from the team.”

Councillor Brendan McKeown, speaking at the Resources Scrutiny Committee meeting, said

“I’ve been aware of delays in validation on quite a number of applications, which leaves the applicant and the agent pretty frustrated.

“One from Hixon Parish Council is an application for a change of use, which was in the system for 14 weeks before it was validated.

“The only reason why it wasn’t validated is because one of the plans didn’t have a scale bar on or the north point – it felt to me they were such minor things that could have been dealt with once it had been validated.

“That may be the tip of an iceberg or the whole of the iceberg, but it’s definitely an issue.”

Committee chair Councillor Mike Dodson said

“It’s the sort of minor thing that upsets people. If we’ve got the right controls in place it’s easy to spot and easy to give a much better impression of the services we give – it does make complaints a positive thing sometimes and it spots things we are perhaps missing.”

The report also revealed that the council aimed to acknowledge complaints within five working days.

The average number of days to acknowledge Stage 1 complaints was 5.87 days and for Stage 2 complaints it was 6.63 days in 2025/26.

The average number of days to respond to a Stage 1 complaint was 9.92 days, fewer than the council’s aim of 15 working days. The average number of days to respond to a Stage 2 complaint was 13.73, also below the council’s target of 20 working days.

Councillor Emma Carter said

“From my perspective, if I’m making a complaint, I would be more perturbed if it took longer initially to be acknowledged than I would with the resolution.

“If I put in a complaint I would want it to be acknowledged quickly, even if it took me a few days longer to get a resolution.”