Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council not processing or responding to a tree felling licence it received from the Forestry Commission to remove from land many trees covered by a Tree Preservation Order, not taking account of its own Climate Change Action Plan, nor using enough resources to deal with such licences. There is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to Mr X by the matters complained of to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to:
1. acknowledge or reply to a felling licence notification from the Forestry Commission (FC) in 2022 relating to the removal of over 100 trees covered by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO);
2. consider its response to the licence in line with their statutory duties under Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012;
3. consider the tree removal in the context of its own Climate Change Action Plan;
4. allocate sufficient resources to deal with tree felling licence matters.
2. Mr X says the trees’ removal has had a significant negative impact on the local amenity and environment of the buildings nearby. He says that as someone professionally involved in environmental management, he has lost faith in the Council. Mr X says the matter has caused him significant anxiety and stress because it relates to the issue of climate change, and he is upset the Council has not valued sufficiently the lost trees.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mr X, relevant online maps and images of the area, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. In its replies to Mr X’s complaint, the Council accepted it should have registered and considered a response to the FC notification about the TPO trees. It also accepts the trees’ loss is unlikely to align with its broader aims to act to mitigate climate change. The Council has been unable to say why it did not reply to the FC’s licence notification, nor whether its officers assessed the licence at the time. There has been fault by the Council in its process to deal with the licence notification and in its record-keeping of any decisions it made. While a Council response objecting to the trees’ removal may not have altered the outcome on the ground, the Council should have had a process to consider the licence and respond as officers found appropriate. The Council says it has changed its internal processes to make sure such correspondence is not missed in future.
6. But even if Council fault led to the loss of the trees here, we will not investigate. Mr X lives several miles away from the TPO site so the tree loss has had no impact on his own property. Any effects on properties nearer to the site are not a personal injustice to him. We note Mr X’s loss of faith in the Council, anxiety and stress but these are insufficiently significant personal injustices to him to warrant us investigating. We recognise some of Mr X’s upset stems from his broader concern about tree loss’ effects on climate change. But Mr X is no more impacted by the effect of the removal of these trees on wider climate issues than any other resident. Neither this claimed injustice, nor the total impact of it and the other injustices raised, amount to a sufficiently significant injustice to Mr X to justify us investigating.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the matters complained of do not cause him sufficient significant personal injustice to justify us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman