Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of matters relating to the height of a hedge adjacent to Mr X’s property. This is because the complaint is a late complaint and because an investigation would achieve no useful outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that due to fault by the Council a planning condition relating to the maximum height of a hedge close to his property was not included with a planning permission and so the height restriction is not enforceable. He says the hedge was about 5 metres high when he moved in over 10 years ago and is now over 8 metres in parts when the maximum height that should have been enforced is 7.6 metres. He seeks compensation and says he would never have moved into his house had he known the condition had not been included.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant, including the Council’s response to the complaint.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The time restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies to Mr X’s complaint. This is because he first raised the matter of the hedge with the planning enforcement team over 10 years ago. As we would reasonably have expected him to have complained to us sooner, the complaint is a late complaint and so falls outside our jurisdiction due to the passage of time. This is the case even if the Council’s error in omitting the maximum hedge height condition from the relevant planning permission has only more recently been made clear to Mr X.
8. Moreover, in responding to Mr X’s recent complaint about the matter, the Council has visited the site and measured the height of the hedge. It found the measurements came to approximately 7.5 - 7.7 metres. It has told Mr X that even if the condition had been in force, given the small tolerance allowed for the various angles the readings are taken, it has said it would not have taken enforcement action if the hedge was slightly higher than approved plans any way because it would not be expedient to do so.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the complaint is a late complaint and because an investigation would achieve no useful outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman