Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council stopping maintaining land it does not own. Investigation is unlikely to find fault by the Council. Also, Mr X has not been caused a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has stopped maintaining land bordering his home and some other land. He says this will result in the land becoming overgrown, resulting in lost amenity and antisocial behaviour.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy complaint correspondence the Council sent.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. A piece of land, open to the road, adjoins Mr X’s property. Neither the Council nor Mr X owns that land. The Council previously maintained grass, trees and bushes there. Recently, the Council decided no longer to maintain land that it does not own, unless the landowner pays the Council. There is no such arrangement for the land bordering Mr X’s home, so the Council stopped maintaining it.
6. The Council has no obligation to maintain land that it does not own and that is not part of the adopted highway. The Council’s doing so in the past did not make it fault for the Council to decide to stop doing it. Nor is the Council under any obligation to adopt land that happens to adjoin the highway. Therefore it is unlikely we would criticise the Council for stopping maintaining the land or for not adopting the land.
7. Mr X says the Council said it would write to residents about the change but has not done so. I do not consider that caused Mr X a significant injustice as he knew about the change. Even had the Council told him sooner, the substantive position would still be the same. Nor do I see evidence the Council said it would write to residents. The Council told Mr X it would write to the ‘owners’ about their responsibilities, but from the context, that referred to the owners of land the Council was stopping maintaining, not to owners of nearby homes.
8. Mr X is unhappy the Council will no longer maintain trees he says the Council planted on the land adjoining his home. Mr X, like any homeowner, has legal rights to take steps regarding trees that overhang or trespass on his property. Any concern or inconvenience on this point does not amount to a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation by the Ombudsman.
9. Mr X says it is not reasonable for the Council to expect residents to buy the necessary equipment and maintain the land. However, the Council said maintenance was the landowner’s responsibility. It did not suggest occupants of nearby houses were responsible.
10. Mr X suggested he might not have bought his home if he had known the Council would stop looking after the land. If that was a consideration for Mr X, it was open to him to satisfy himself about the adjoining land’s ownership and responsibilities when buying his home. As the Council did not own the land, Mr X could not rely on the Council maintaining it permanently.
11. Mr X says he fears road accidents from inadequate sightlines if the land is not maintained. I have not seen any suggestion the Council will not maintain land that is part of the adopted highway. It need not maintain other land.
12. Mr X suggests the change will affect not just the land adjoining his home but other land on his estate and other estates in the district. That is speculative. It depends on who owns particular pieces of land and whether owners other than the Council have paid the Council to maintain their land. Mr X also suggests unmaintained areas might become overgrown, attracting smokers and drug-users and making paths unsafe for walking. Again, those points are speculative. Moreover, the Council and police have powers to deal with any antisocial or criminal behaviour that might happen in future. I do not consider these speculative points show a significant enough injustice to Mr X for us to investigate in respect of the land near his home. There is even less injustice to Mr X in respect of other areas.
13. Mr X suggests property values will decline if the Council does not maintain the land. That is speculative and anyway it is not the Council’s role to maintain private property values by looking after neighbouring land owned by third parties.
14. Mr X suggests he will lose out as a council taxpayer, since the Council will no longer be spending the money it previously spent maintaining the land. Council tax is a tax to be paid according to the law. It is not a payment or contract for particular services. So I shall not pursue this point.
15. While the Council was dealing with Mr X about this matter, a Council contractor visited the land bordering Mr X’s home while Mr X was shredding trimmings he had cut from the trees. The contractor photographed Mr X and suggested Mr X might be fly-tipping. The contractor deleted the photographs at Mr X’s request. The Council apologised for the incident, and for not advising Mr X a contractor was coming. It also said it had spoken to its contractor to clarify the fly-tipping matter. We could not achieve more on this point now.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and the matters complained of have not caused Mr X a significant enough injustice for the Ombudsman to devote time and public money to investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman