Summary: There was no fault in the Council’s decision not to use its licensing enforcement powers, to address a problem with drainage and flooding on a park home site, and the Council is now satisfied the operator is complying with their licence. However, the Council was at fault because it did not maintain an adequate level of contact with the complainant, which caused him frustration. The Council has agreed to formally apologise and offer a small financial remedy to reflect this.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr B.
2. Mr B complains the Council has not taken effective action to address a problem with drainage at the park home site where he lives. He says this causes water and sewage to back up in his toilet and shower, preventing their use, but that the Council has not used its powers of enforcement to ensure the site operator resolves the problem. Mr B says his wife has medical conditions which make hygiene particularly important, and the drainage issues therefore represent a risk to her health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

5. Mr B’s complaint to the Ombudsman covers events going back to 2016. However, as described at paragraph 4, the law says a person should approach us within 12 months of becoming aware of the issue they wish to complain about. This is called the ‘permitted period’. Mr B complained to us in March 2025, meaning any events preceding March 2024 are late under this rule.
6. The law allows us some flexibility in the application of the time restriction, but we must be satisfied there is a good reason for the complainant’s delay in approaching us. I do not consider there is any evidence to suggest Mr B could not reasonably have approached us sooner. He contacted the Council frequently throughout 2024 and 2025, the Council signposted him to us in December 2024 at the conclusion of its own investigation.
7. For this reason I will not disapply the time restriction here, and my investigation will only cover events from March 2024 onward.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Mr B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

Park home site licensing

10. Operators of residential park home sites in England require a licence from the local council to operate. The licence will usually have conditions attached.
11. The Mobile Homes Act 2013 gave local authorities more effective control of conditions on park home sites. It introduced new powers of enforcement against breaches of site licence conditions.
12. If a council finds an operator is breaching their site licence, it may first serve a compliance notice, requiring them to resolve the breach. Failure to comply with a notice is an offence, and the operator can be prosecuted and receive a significant fine. The council can also complete the remedial work itself (‘work in default’) and recover its costs from the operator.
13. However, government guidance says councils should take a staged approach to enforcement. In the first instance, councils should take an informal approach. Formal action should normally be considered only when the informal process has failed to achieve the necessary outcome within reasonable timescales.

Mr B’s complaint

14. The following is intended to provide a summary of the key events relevant to this complaint. It is not meant to be a detailed description of everything that happened.
15. Mr B and his wife live on a park home (‘caravan’) site. In 2016 Mr B contacted the Council to report drainage problems on the site, which were causing their toilet and shower drain to back up and flood. The Council investigated, which led to the site operator carrying out some remedial work, and the Council closed its case in 2020.
16. The Council says it heard nothing further from Mr B until October 2023, when he raised a new report of flooding.
17. In November 2023, the Council says it undertook a site inspection to assess the operator’s compliance with their licence conditions. Then, in February 2024, it asked Mr B to complete a diary, to allow to assess the frequency of the incidents he had reported.
18. In March the Council held a meeting with the operator, during which it was agreed the operator would fit non-return valves (designed to prevent the backflow of water) to the pipes in the area of Mr B’s park home. The Council says it later held another meeting with the local water utility company to discuss problems with the mains drainage.
19. In October Mr B submitted a stage 1 complaint to the Council. He complained he had been reporting issues since 2016 without resolution, and that the Council had told him in April the operator would be fitting non-return valves, but the flooding problems persisted. Mr B questioned whether the Council had inspected the site properly and suggested the operator was acting in breach of their licence.
20. The Council responded in November. It denied the case had been ongoing since 2016, pointing out it had heard nothing from Mr B after closing the original case in November 2020 until October 2023. It acknowledged the new case was ongoing but said the Council’s case officer had been “liaising” with Mr B, and that it was considering its next steps. The Council did not uphold Mr B’s complaint.
21. After a further complaint from Mr B, the Council sent a final response in December. It reiterated its previous comments, but added that the case officer was awaiting responses from the site operator and utility company before deciding what the Council should do next.
22. In March 2025 Mr B referred his complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Analysis

23. I asked the Council to provide an update on events which have occurred since Mr B submitted his complaint to us.
24. The Council explained the site operator had originally agreed to install the non-return valves within six weeks, I assume from the date of the meeting in March 2024. However, the Council then agreed to extend this deadline to permit the operator to arrange a drainage survey. The Council has not specified when this took place.
25. The Council went on to explain the survey had identified two issues on the site – a damaged pipe and a malfunctioning pumping station – which were contributing to the drainage problems. The operator had now undertaken remedial work to address these issues, which the Council had confirmed by a site inspection, and it said it had not received any further complaints of flooding since then. Again, the Council did not specify when this took place.
26. For this reason though, the Council says it has agreed the non-return valves are no longer required, because they would not address the cause of the flooding on site.
27. The Council said the inspection had established an additional problem with the capacity of the mains drainage, to which the site’s drainage system feeds into. It explained, in the event of heavy rain, there was still a possibility of water backing up and causing flooding on site. Unfortunately the only way to address this is for the utility company to increase the capacity of the mains drainage system, which it had no current plans to do.
28. In the simple sense, therefore, it appears there is nothing further the Council can do to resolve the problems on site. The site operator is not responsible for the mains drainage system, and so this is not something the Council can treat as a licensing matter; and the Council has no enforcement powers over the utility company itself in this respect.
29. I am conscious Mr B has said the site was originally designed to host holiday-makers and not full-time residents, and that he says this explains why the drainage system does not have adequate capacity. I cannot make my own judgement on this, but I acknowledge the suggestion the Council should have given more consideration to this, when it gave planning permission for the conversion of the site to its current use. Given the passage of time though, this is not something we could practically investigate now.
30. I am therefore satisfied the Council has now done everything in its power to resolve the drainage problems on the site.
31. However, Mr B feels the Council should have used its enforcement powers, to make the site operator carry out remedial work more quickly. In particular, over the course of several months in 2024 and 2025 Mr B repeatedly contacted the Council to ask for an update on the installation of the non-return valves.
32. I acknowledge Mr B’s frustration on this point, especially given his wife’s medical situation, which requires hygienic conditions to manage. Ultimately, though, it is for the Council to decide how to apply its enforcement powers. The guidance issued by the government sets out clearly that a council should use an informal approach at first, and only escalate to formal enforcement action if it is dissatisfied with the site operator’s level of cooperation.
33. The Council’s correspondence with Mr B during this period implies, at points, it was waiting for updates from the site operator which were some time in coming. There is nothing in the evidence I have seen, however, which suggests the Council felt the operator was being uncooperative at any point. It is evident the Council remain satisfied it was not necessary to take formal enforcement action, and this was a decision it was entitled to make.
34. This said, I do consider the Council could have been more proactive in its level of contact with Mr B. His growing frustration with the situation is evident from the tone of his emails to the Council, and, while I appreciate there was often no substantive update to give him, it could at least have offset some of this frustration by making greater efforts to stay in touch.
35. On balance I consider the Council is at fault for this, and that the frustration it caused Mr B is an injustice to him. To remedy this, I consider the Council should write a formal letter of apology to Mr B, and offer a small financial remedy.

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Action

36. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council has agreed to:

• write a formal letter of apology to Mr B, acknowledging it should have maintained a more proactive level of contact with him during its investigation of the drainage issues, and the frustration this caused him. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings; and
• offer to pay Mr B £150 for the same reason.

37. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

38. I find fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman