Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s response to residents placing logs on Council land, and how it dealt with her communications and complaint. There is insufficient significant personal injustice to Ms X caused by the matters complained of to warrant us investigating. We do not investigate councils’ communications and complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Ms X lives in a private development. As a resident, she is also a director of the company which manages the development. Between the property’s boundary and the roadway is a grass verge. Some residents decided, against Ms X’s position, to put logs on the grass verge. She complains the Council:
1. delayed in taking action to get the logs removed;
2. did not respond to her emails and calls in a timely manner.
2. Ms X says the logs were in a dangerous position and she heard that a cyclist had hit one of them. She says she has spent time and been caused inconvenience by the Council not replying to her and felt ignored and fobbed off.

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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 Ms X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The core issue in Ms X’s complaint is the Council’s actions in response to her report about the logs placed on its land by residents at the development where she lives. If this had not happened, Ms X would not have had cause to contact the Council.
6. After Ms X’s reports and contacts, a Council officer visited the site and asked some of the residents of the development to remove the logs from the verge. They were removed before an officer revisited the site in mid-March 2025. The logs had been on the verge for about nine or ten weeks.
7. Even if there was Council fault in how it responded to the logs, we will not investigate. That Ms X was annoyed and frustrated by other residents putting the logs there was not due to any Council action. We recognise Ms X may have had concerns the Council might take further action against the development where she lives because of the logs, or that the residents were exposing themselves to risk if they caused accident or injury. But that did not happen and we cannot consider as injustices events which did not occur. Any worries of risk Ms X had here were also started by other residents’ actions, not by the Council. If Ms X has concerns about the actions of residents and others involved in the development’s management company, she should raise them with those people directly. We note Ms X says she heard a cyclist struck one of the logs on the verge. But any impact this had on the cyclist is not an injustice to her. The presence of the logs on the verge until their removal, and how the Council dealt with the matter, did not cause Ms X such a significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating.
8. Ms X contacted the Council about the logs for several weeks then complained. We recognise Ms X was caused some frustration and annoyance and spent time contacting the Council about the logs. But this does not amount to such a significant personal injustice to her to justify investigating. In any event, we do not investigate councils’ communications or complaint handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of Ms X’s complaint.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because:
• there is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to her by the matters complained of to warrant us investigating; and
• we do not investigate councils’ communications and complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman