The Local Government Ombudsman is probing residents' concerns about the council's planning department in relation to the new building for Mansfield's Samworth Church Academy, the proposed incinerator in Rainworth and the new post-16 centre at Kirkby's Ashfield School.

Council chiefs insist they have acted properly but if the ombudsman finds the county council has carried out any wrongdoing, it can ask it to take action to put things right or even pay compensation to those affected.

The complaint about the proposed waste incinerator relates to the committee meeting in January where councillors backed the plans by Veolia Environmental Services — which will now go to public inquiry.

Keith Kondakor, waste statistician and supporter of People Against Incineration (PAIN), gave the meeting figures about the amount of waste sent to landfill but says he was accused by a planning officer of getting the details wrong.

He said: "The planning officer claimed at the meeting that my statistics were wrong and undermined our valid arguments at the meeting.

"The officer just assumed that my facts must be wrong and made it impossible for elected members to trust what the objectors were saying. It was in fact the planning officer that was getting all his facts wrong."

And the ombudsman is also looking into concerns about the school building for Samworth Church Academy, relating to work starting on site before planning conditions were fulfilled.

The county council's children and young people's department and the Samworth Academy Trust secured planning permission last year for the state-of-the-art new building and construction work by the Kier Group started in January — but was temporarily put on hold because conditions had not been met.

A local resident, who did not want to be named, said: "The Kier Group were the employees of the county council. In my view, Nottinghamshire County Council was in breach of its own planning conditions."

A spokesman for Nottinghamshire County Council said: "We believe that we have done as we should but we have got to wait and see what the outcome of the ombudsman's deliberations are. We believe that we have acted in the correct manner."

The spokesman said the investigation about Ashfield School relates to a complaint that planning conditions about traffic and parking for the new post-16 centre were breached but the county council did not act on this.

The next meeting of PAIN takes place on Wednesday 6th May at Rainworth Methodist Hall at 7pm and there is also a tea dance on Sunday 10th at Rainworth Village Hall from 2.15-5.30pm, with tickets at £4.