Can a Borough Council ignore a public consultation result?

Question

My local council have created a town investment plan which includes an intervention that would close a perfectly good purpose built library & move less than half of the books 200 meters away to the towns existing Victorian market hall.  The council are also proposing to build offices within the market hall - all this at a cost of £7.2m of Towns Fund money.  The public consultation that was carried out for this project received a no vote of 81% against this proposal, however, the council appear to be ignoring this & are intent on going ahead with this project.  My questions are;

1. are the council allowed to ignore a consultation
2. is there a formal mechanism that allows them to ignore a consultation
3. what recourse do the local people have, i.e. make a formal complaint to the ombudsman etc?

Thanks for any assistance.

Answer 1

I wouldn’t have thought that  there’s much you can do but others may prove me wrong

You must have some very brave Councillors supporting such an unpopular measure
As usual with most Council related problems on this forum the solution is to stand against them at the next election

Answer 2

The Council may ignore a public consultation, although, in my opinion, it is morally reprehensible. When it happens, the excuse is usually derived from playing with the numbers. If half the population responded and 81% were against the proposal, 81% of 50% is 40.5%, so it's obvious that 59.5% are in favour. A significant majority that cannot be ignored!

Answer 3

If my borough council are anything to go by, they can ignore pretty much anything they want!