Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council not cutting back vegetation on a corner next to the rural road on which she lives. There is not enough evidence of Council fault to warrant investigation. Even if there has been fault, there is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to Mrs X or her family by the matters complained of to justify us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council has failed to cut back vegetation on a corner next to the rural road on which she lives. She says the vegetation obstructs drivers’ views of the road and oncoming traffic. Mrs X says this means drivers have to brake sharply and some vehicles have collided. She says she and her family have to put up with noisy disagreements between drivers, which increase at dropping-off and picking-up times for a nearby school. Mrs X wants the Council to cut back the vegetation and give a specific date for when it will do the work.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. 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
• 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 Mrs X, online maps and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We are not an appeal body. We cannot go behind a council’s decision solely because a complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the council’s decision-making process. In this case, officers investigated whether there is a landowner they could contact to get the vegetation cut back. They confirmed the Council does not own the land and there is no registered owner of it for them to write to. Therefore, officers added the works to the list of maintenance jobs in the Council’s area. It is for officers to gather evidence and use professional judgement to decide where the Council uses its resources, including which areas require work before others. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s processes in responding to reports about the area complained of, or when prioritising the work, to warrant an investigation. We recognise Mrs X disagrees with the Council. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
6. Even if there has been fault by the Council, we will not investigate. We recognise Mrs X says incidents between drivers on the affected part of the road have caused her and her family some disturbance. But this impact is not a sufficiently significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating. We note Mrs X’s complaint indicates other road users are be affected by the vegetation. But any claimed impacts on other people are not her nor her family’s injustice.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault to warrant investigation; and
• even if there has been fault, there is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to her by the matters complained of to justify us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman