His concern was driven by the fact that the potentially fraudulent origins of the complaints could lead to their discreditation or the collapse of the complaint further down the line.

Commenting on the matter, Cllr Quinlan said: “There is serious concern from people involved on both sides of a planning complaint that councils are not verifying the names that come in on such complaints.” 

A council executive admitted that there were no methods of verification in place, and the only contact or correspondence with a complainant was letters of update being mailed to the address provided alongside the complaint.

Cllr Quinlan continued: “If, however, it [a planning complaint] is based off a member of the public and it is wrongfully attributed to someone else, we could be in serious trouble. The scope for mischief here is large.

"While the council typically tries to keep such information confidential, that in and of itself helps to ensure that anyone engaging in this type of carry on will have a good chance of getting away with it."

Having been told there was a need to verify that complaints are coming from people who actually live in the community and have a stake in the outcome, the council agreed to review the systems in place to see if a change is necessary to ensure sincerity within the structure of the complaint reporting system.