Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about highway maintenance because the courts are better placed to consider the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs Y complained the Council cut her grass and hedge as it has wrongly included her land in its maintenance map. She also is unhappy with how the Council dealt with her complaint about the issue, in particular the lack of communication.
2. Mrs Y says this has caused her inconvenience in chasing the matter and upset as her family have been maintaining the land for over a century.

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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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

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

4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information Mrs Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs Y initially contacted the Council in January 2024, after the Council trimmed the hedges and cut the verges along her land. She complained, saying that as the owners of the land, her family had been maintaining the land for many years. Mrs Y believes the Council should not be maintaining the land. The Council considered the issue and carried out a site visit, albeit that the officer did not contact Mrs Y about this, before concluding that it felt its maintenance map, which sets out where it is responsible for maintaining land, was correct. Mrs Y disagrees with this.
7. The Council is the local highways authority in this case. It has a statutory duty to maintain adopted streets and roads. This can include verges and hedges in some cases. It keeps a maintenance map, based on various different sources, to record where it is responsible for maintenance works. In this instance, the Council has considered its records and its maintenance map and has concluded that the map correctly records that it is responsible for the hedge and verge maintenance and so it has the right to carry out these works.
8. While Mrs Y does own the land or subsoil, which is not in dispute, the Council may have highway rights over that land. Where there is a dispute over land rights and responsibilities and where these begin and end, it is for the courts, not the Ombudsman, to determine the extent to which each party has said rights. We do not have the power to determine such issues. As the courts are able to do this, the courts are better placed to consider this complaint. Consequently, we will not investigate.
9. Mrs Y has also complained about the poor communication she experienced during her complaint about the verge maintenance. The Council has apologised for confusion over how to challenge its maintenance map and has agreed to change its policy to improve clarity. It has also apologised for the impression Mrs Y received that she had to raise a complaint to receive communication.
10. As the Council has considered the issue and its impact and has apologised and taken to try to ensure it does not happen in the future, any injustice remaining would not be sufficiently serious a distress to warrant our investigation so we will not investigate this. Further, where we are unable to deal with the substantive matter, it is not a good use of public funds to investigate how a Council has dealt with a complaint. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because the courts are better placed to consider the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman