Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council denying ownership and responsibility for maintenance of a piece of land next to her property, despite previously doing work on the land. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process when determining it does not own the land to warrant an investigation. There is no worthwhile or different outcome an investigation by us could achieve.

The complaint

1. Ms X lives in a property next to a piece land with trees and undergrowth. She complains the Council:
1. has denied ownership and maintenance responsibilities for the land;
2. has made this decision despite previously accessing the land and doing work on it several years ago.
2. Ms X wants the Council to cut back the trees and vegetation on the land so she and her neighbours can repair the fence.

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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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(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 Ms X and the Council, relevant online images and maps, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The issue at the core of Ms X’s complaint is which person or organisation owns the overgrown land so bears responsibility to maintain it. The Council says to investigate whether it owned the land it visited and inspected it, consulted its legal department and got information from the Land Registry. Officers determined the Council does not own the land. They say the Council does not have responsibility to maintain the land as that duty would lie with its owner. The Council has gathered and considered relevant information to make its decision. There is not enough evidence of fault in that decision-making process here to warrant us investigating.
6. We realise Ms X disputes the Council’s position that it does not own the land. But for us to make a recommendation to the Council to do work to the land as Ms X wants, we would have to find officers were wrong to decide it does not own it. Only the courts can rule on legal matters like land ownership. We do not have powers to make such legal determinations so cannot find the Council’s position that it does not own the land and is not responsible for its maintenance is incorrect. It follows that we cannot recommend the Council should do work to the land, so an investigation by us could not achieve a worthwhile outcome.
7. We understand Ms X has in part reached her view that the Council should do work on the land because it has removed trees and vegetation from it in the past. But any previous Council work on the land does not give us grounds to find it owns it or must repeat that work. The Council’s current position after its latest investigations succeeds any view it may have previously taken. As explained above, we cannot make a finding on whether that current position is correct or not. If the Council previously did work to land it did not and does not own, this would have been fault, even though it would have been fault which benefitted Ms X and her neighbours. If that earlier work was fault by the Council, we could not recommend it commit the same fault again now as a complaint outcome. An investigation by us would not achieve a different outcome here so we will not investigate.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant an investigation; and
• there is also no worthwhile outcome an investigation by us could achieve; and
• an investigation by us would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman