Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a gap in her boundary with Council land and how if dealt with her complaint about it. The core boundary matter does not cause such a significant personal injustice to Mrs X to warrant us investigating. We will not investigate the Council’s internal complaints processes as we are not pursuing the core matter giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives next to some Council land. Her garden shares a long side boundary with the site. Users of the land cut down a large tree and bush which formed part of the boundary, leaving a gap. Mrs X complains the Council:
1. has not fixed the gap in the boundary;
2. did not deal properly with the complaint.
2. Mrs X says the gap is an eyesore and leaves her property exposed to overlooking by people on the land, and to possible intruders. She wants the Council to plant bushes or put in a fence to block the gap.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council, which included photographs of the location submitted to the Council by Mrs X.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. I recognise the presence of the gap in the boundary vegetation is annoying to Mrs X. It would have been preferable if the gap had not been made. But the scale of the gap does not afford significant overlooking into Mrs X’s property. It is also temporary, because foliage and plants will further reduce it, and improve its appearance, as they grow back.
7. I also note Mrs X’s concern about intruders. But no event is reported where someone has intruded into the garden through that part of the boundary. We cannot take account of events which have not occurred when assessing injustice. The concern about what might happen is not a sufficient injustice to warrant us investigating.
8. For these reasons, the injustice caused by the boundary gap on Mrs X and her family is not sufficiently significant to justify us investigating.
9. Mrs X says the Council has not dealt properly with the complaint as replies referred to different work done on another part of the boundary. We will not investigate a council’s internal complaint process in isolation where we are not pursuing the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not an effective use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here, so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• the boundary gap does not cause such significant personal injustice to Mrs X to justify us investigating;
• we do not investigate councils’ internal complaints processes in isolation where we are not pursuing the core matters which gave rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman