Summary: We will not investigate Mr Q’s complaint that the Council has not taken enforcement action over someone’s failure to replace felled trees. The complaint is late. And Mr Q has not suffered significant injustice because of the alleged fault.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I have called Mr Q, complained that the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has not taken enforcement action over someone’s failure to replace felled trees. He also complained about the Council’s handling of his complaint about the matter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. 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)
4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Mr Q and the Council. I considered information available on the Council’s website. And I invited Mr Q to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

6. In 2014 the Council granted planning permission to someone to fell a group of trees protected by a tree protection order. It attached a condition to the planning permission requiring the trees to be replaced within 12 months of being felled. The applicant felled the trees later in 2014 but did not replace them. Mr Q lives near the application site, but not next to it.
7. In 2017 Mr Q complained to a councillor over the Council’s apparent failure to ensure the felled trees were replaced. In 2018 he complained to the Council and to us about the matter. He was also unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint.

Analysis

8. We will not investigate this complaint.
9. The applicant felled the trees in 2014 and was required to replace them within 12 months, so by 2015. It would have been apparent at the time that the trees had been felled and not replaced. But Mr Q did not contact anyone about the matter until 2017, two years after the trees ought to have been replaced. And he did not complain to us about the Council’s apparent lack of action until 2018. So the complaint is late and there are no good reasons for us to consider it now.
10. In any event, even if the Council is at fault in the way Mr Q alleges, his injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. He does not live next to the application site and, if he was concerned about the missing trees, he could have pursued the matter much sooner.
11. Finally, Mr Q is unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint. We will not investigate the substantive matter he complained of. So it would not be a good use of public resources to investigate the Council’s handling of Mr Q’s complaint.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint for the reasons given in the Analysis.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman