Warrington Council (19 003 521)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Upheld
Decision date : 18 Dec 2019
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mrs X complains about the Council’s refusal to take action to remove trees which have caused her a nuisance. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because, whilst there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation, the Council has agreed to remove the tree causing the problem.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains about the Council’s refusal to take action to remove trees which have caused her a nuisance.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
- it is unlikely we would find fault, or
- the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered the complainant's and Council's comments. The complainant has commented on the draft decision.
What I found
- Mrs X says that the trees on the Council’s land next to her have caused her a nuisance. She says that she has to remove the leaves and branches to avoid this nuisance.
- Leaves on the ground are the responsibility of the owner of the land upon which they fall. The Council has agreed to remove the tree. This is a reasonable remedy to the complaint although the Ombudsman would not investigate the complaint about the removal of leaves from the ground as there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation.
Final decision
- The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because the Council has agreed to remedy the matter and there is insufficient remaining injustice to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman