Summary: Mr X complains about matters relating to the Council’s decision to allow the felling of a well-known tree in his locality. We will not investigate the complaint because there are insufficient grounds to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, says the Council has failed to address issues arising from the felling of a prominent and much-loved tree in his locality. He says the Council’s record keeping for Tree Preservation Orders (TPO) in the past has been poor, its failure to communicate misled his neighbourhood into assuming a TPO existed when it did not and that it did not give the neighbourhood an opportunity to get a second opinion on the state of the tree.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. 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, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. In considering the complaint I reviewed information provided by Mr X and the Council. I gave Mr X the opportunity to comment on my draft decision and considered what he said.

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What I found

5. The Council decided not to issue a TPO for a privately-owned tree because its tree officer assessed that its poor condition did not warrant it. As the tree had been well-liked by residents in the locality, they had considered getting a second opinion on its health but they were not able to arrange this before the owner felled it.
6. Unhappy about this, and that the Council had allowed neighbours to wrongly assume the tree to have been under the protection of a TPO, Mr X complained to the Council.
7. The Council responded by providing the information it had about the tree in question and other trees which had been considered in relation to a planning permission over 20 years ago and it explained why the tree was not the subject of a TPO. It noted its tree officer had spoken to Mr X on the day the owners of the tree arranged for its felling and that the officer had visually inspected the tree. It said in the professional judgement of the officer the poor condition of the tree meant a TPO would not be served and it told Mr X that as a privately-owned tree outside of a conservation area, no consent for its removal was required.

Assessment

8. Mr X has complained about Council record keeping from over 20 years ago. However, it is too late to look now at what took place at this time and, due to the passage of time, there is no useful outcome an investigation would achieve.
9. Mr X says because tree felling can be controversial communities should be allowed to seek a second expert opinion besides that of one tree officer. However, there is no requirement for the Council to wait for this. A resident sought to fell a tree they owned, and the Council’s professionally qualified tree officer assessed the tree as not warranting a TPO therefore allowing the resident to remove it. It is the role of tree officers to make such judgements and the merits of their decisions are not open to review by the Ombudsman no matter how strongly complainants may disagree with those decisions.
10. In responding to my draft decision Mr X restates that we have not investigated his complaint of poor record keeping of TPOs, poor and non-existent communication with the neighbourhood and that residents were not given the opportunity to get a second opinion on the tree. As explained, we will not investigate what took place so many years ago because even though Mr X may only have realised recently there was no TPO on the tree in question, with historic events we are less likely to be able to obtain the required evidence; standards, guidance and professional expectations change over time and here we can achieve no meaningful remedy given the 20 years that have passed. While Mr X may desire a system whereby councils are required to consult with local residents and wait to see if they want to obtain their own tree survey, the system currently in operation does not require this.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there are insufficient grounds to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman