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Devon County Council (06/B/12820) NEW

Maladministration causing injustice

A member and former Access Officer of the Ramblers Association was caused “frustration, inconvenience, aggravation and uncertainty” – and was put to some expense – by Devon County Council’s delay in making footpath modification orders. The Ombudsman said that, following the Secretary of State’s direction that the orders should be made, the Council unreasonably delayed taking action and made a series of broken promises to the complainant about it.

The Ombudsman was pleased that the Council agreed to implement his recommendations to put things right, including apologising, making the outstanding orders, reviewing its procedures, and funding some extra footpath works in the area.

‘Mr Oak’ (not his real name) was a member and former Access Officer of the Ramblers Association. He lived in East Devon and for some time he had been trying to get the County Council to make modification orders for several footpaths not far from his home.

Mr Oak said that at first the Council refused to make a decision on his claimed footpaths for several years. But, once the Council reached a decision not to make the orders, he was able to appeal against the Council’s decision to the Secretary of State for the Environment (via the Planning Inspectorate). The Council lost the appeal and in 2005 the Planning Inspectorate directed the Council to make the relevant orders.

Mr Oak said that the Council unreasonably delayed publishing the orders and he now doubted that he would be able to use the footpaths in his lifetime (he was 80 years old). He said the Council’s delays have deprived him of the use of paths that he would have expected to use every few weeks.

The Ombudsman found that the Council’s delays and broken promises of action caused injustice to Mr Oak. To remedy this, the Council agreed to:

• apologise for the delays:
• fund £500 of new footpath work in the area in recognition of the delays, uncertainty and inconvenience in pursuing this matter; the work to be agreed with the complainant;
• ensure (if not already done) that there is no further unreasonable delay and that orders are properly made; and
• review its procedures to ensure that the failings identified here are unlikely to recur.

27 February 2008

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