Hartlepool Borough Council (03C16787)

Leisure and culture & Land       Maladministration causing injustice

31 August 2005

'Mr Pine' (not his real name for legal reasons) complained on behalf of an association of allotment tenants about the way they were forced to quit their allotments (‘Meadowfields’) by the Council in autumn 2003; the actions of the Council which led to that eviction; and the failure to provide them with a suitable allotment site.

Their allotments were situated next to a site that had been identified in the 1994 Hartlepool local plan as a site for executive housing. By 1996 Council officers were also considering trying to sell the allotments for executive housing. Then only two out of thirty two plots were vacant. The Council stopped filling vacancies in 1996, which it acknowledged was an error – however, it did authorise this in 1999. In 2001 the Secretary of State gave conditional consent to the sale but the conditions included provision of a replacement site nearby and the need to get planning permission for housing at Meadowfields. Such permission was refused in July 2002, yet the Council pressed ahead, issued tenants with notices to quit that autumn and dropped its plans to provide a replacement site (the one identified had also been refused planning permission), instead offering tenants individual vacancies on other allotments. In 2005 a Government planning inspector concluded the Council should drop its proposal in the emerging new local plan to designate Meadowfields (and two adjacent sites) for housing.

The Ombudsman did not criticise the Council for seeking to sell land to raise money to fund other services. However, there was a conflict here with its duty to make adequate allotment provision and she concluded that the way it pursued this sale was flawed. In particular it did not establish the likelihood of a successful planning application before taking any firm action – which was maladministration. As a result it allowed the site to deteriorate so that, by the time it served the notices to quit, it appeared it had ample justification to do so (for at least half the plots were uncultivated and the site had a run-down appearance). The Ombudsman concluded that, as a direct result of that maladministration, association members lost their allotments - leading some to give up and some to move to (for them) inferior allotments - and long-established friendships were disrupted.

The Ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice and recommended that the Council should, without delay, give serious thought to the reestablishment of Meadowfields as an allotment site, in consultation with association representatives (Mr Pine said 14 association members would like to return). Priority for new holdings should be given to those who previously held allotments there. In addition the Council should pay Mr Pine £250 for his time, trouble and expense in pursuing the complaint.

Date Published: 13/08/09