Council’s decision not to prune or remove a tree it owns outside his house. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision‑making process, nor sufficient personal injustice caused to Mr X or his family, to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X lives in a property with a Council-owned tree outside. He complains the Council is refusing to act in response to his complaints about droppings, from birds in the tree, falling on his car.
Mr X says the matter is causing him great stress. He is anxious about cleaning his car because he is worried about catching a disease from the droppings. He says he is being caused inconvenience from having to clean his car every day. He wants the Council to either prune the tree to what he considers an acceptable level or remove it entirely and plant a new one.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 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)) We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision-making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Mr X, the Council’s policy, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We may only go behind a council’s decision about what work to do to a tree where there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process which, but for that fault, would have resulted in officers making a different decision. So we consider what process the Council followed which led to officers deciding not to do work to or remove the tree in the highway outside Mr X’s property.
Mr X raised his concerns about the tree with Environmental Maintenance Team officers, who responded in the first instance. He said bird droppings and tree debris land on his car, that the tree blocks light getting into his house, that it drops leaves on to his property, and is leaning towards his house. Once Mr X formally complained to the Council in September 2022, officers reviewed the earlier correspondence and gathered the latest information they had on the tree concerned. They explained to Mr X that none of the issues he raised, including the bird droppings, gave the Council grounds under its adopted policy to prune or remove the tree. The Council said its policy only allows such work where there is concern about the health of the tree, or a significant health and safety concern to members of the public. Officers inspected the tree in August 2022, found no health issues with the tree and that no work was required. They said they would do an additional inspection of the tree’s structure once it has dropped its leaves, and give the results to Mr X.
Officers have followed and applied their policy and gathered appropriate information to reach their decision. There is not enough evidence of fault here in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant us going behind the Council’s professional judgement decision and investigating. I realise Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
Even if there had been fault by the Council here, there is not enough injustice caused by the matter to justify an investigation. I understand Mr X considers his concern about catching a disease from the bird droppings should require the Council to do work to the tree under its existing policy, as it amounts to a health risk to him. But there would only be any potential health risk to Mr X if he chose not to clean the droppings off his car in an unhygienic manner. He can decide to remove the droppings in a way which prevents any significant health risk to himself or his family. I realise this and other injustices Mr X has raised cause him stress, annoyance and inconvenience. But this does not amount to such a significant injustice to him or his family to warrant us investigating.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: there is not enough fault in the way the Council decided not to do work to a tree it owns outside his house to warrant an investigation; the matters do not cause sufficient personal injustice to Mr X or his family to justify us investigating.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman