Vale Royal Borough Council, Cheshire County Council and the Local Government Ombudsman
The Background story
During 1990 a local developer bought the field next to my property and obtained outline planning permission to build houses in three distinct phases. The nature of the site meant that a class 3A local distributor road must be built through the site. This distributor road would also link up with another development and complete the last part of a crescent feeding some 400 houses in total.
In the spring of 1991 the developer started to construct the road in a different position to that shown on the approved plan. This was done to accommodate extra houses on the opposite side of the road. By moving the roadway closer to my property and to a higher level than on the original plans access and egress to my property would be very difficult if not impossible. I tried to make the council aware of the problem; however, they were not interested. All they kept stating was that the problem had nothing to do with them.
The borough council had an agency agreement with the highway authority (county council) enabling the borough council to carry out highway authority functions within their own borough. During the spring of 1992 the developer signed a section 38 road adoption agreement with the borough council.
A section 38 road adoption agreement is a legal agreement to ensure a road is completed to the planned standards at the developer's expense before being adopted by the council. This agreement is normally supported by a bond and the original plans form part of that agreement. So in essence the council signed the agreement knowing full well that the road was not being constructed in the planned or bonded position. Furthermore, one of the obligations in the agreement is that the developer owns the land necessary for completing the roads to the adoptable standards.
During June 1992 the developer applied for a part 1 certificate for the road. Even though the council knew the roadway was not in the planned and bonded position and that the developer did not own the land necessary to finish the road to adoptable standards they still issued a part 1 certificate.
During the autumn of 1992 the developer tried to complete the roadway by trespassing on my property and interfering with my right of way. As a result I decided to take legal action against the developer in order to protect my interests. Following a long and expensive legal case the Appeal Court essentially found in my favour during 1996. Any part of the roadway on my property would be trespass.
By this time the developer was already in breach of the section 38 road adoption agreement because he had not completed the link road to the part 2 standards by the agreed deadline, March 1994.
Furthermore, by completing the houses on the opposite side of the road they had entrenched the wrong position of the roadway, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, to construct the roadway in the original planned and bonded position.
Although the developer was in fundamental breach of the section 38 road adoption agreement the council took no action against them in order to protect their interests. On the contrary they made things a lot worse by giving the developer planning permission for phase two of their development before the problems with phase one were resolved. If that was not bad enough they even allowed the developer to start work on phase two without the protection of an advance payment let alone a section 38 road adoption agreement.
By 1996 the council had still not taken any action against the developer. However, the developer had essentially completed all the houses on the land in their ownership. (Although they still had planning permission for phase three of their planned development they land in question was on an option agreement and not owned by them. The developer then went into receivership leaving all the roadways on phase one unfinished, all the roadways on phase two unfinished, without any advance payment or section 38 agreement for phase two, or paying my court costs.
The council now had a number of very serious problems. Two unfinished roads, one with a frustrated section 38 road adoption agreement and the other with no agreement at all.
During June 1997 a solicitor for the borough council suggested that I would just have to suffer the consequences of the roadway being finished in the wrong position. They actually expected me to help them out of their self created difficulties by suffering the consequences of their serial maladministration by allowing them to complete the roadway on my land.
They even threatened that if I did not agree they would just do it anyway. It was that threat that led to my first complaint with the local government ombudsman.
I submitted a complaint to the local government ombudsman during June 1997. I was advised by the Ombudsman that two other parties had also submitted complaints and I was asked if I would agree to all the complaints being investigated together. The complainants consisted of a young couple who had bought a house on phase one, another family who had bought a property on phase two and me. I agreed and the investigation commenced. During the investigation, the young couple, tired of waiting for the roadways leading to their property to be finished, decided to sell up and move. As a result their complaint came to an end because they were no longer suffering injustice as a result of maladministration. The remaining complaints can be read here.
During the investigation the county council cancelled an agreement they had with the borough council that enabled the borough council to carry out highway authority functions in their area.
Following the investigation the Ombudsman found in our favour and even produced a report during October 1998 accepting that my neighbour and I had both suffered injustice as a result of council maladministration. I was later to find out that only 1.6% of complainants achieve such a result. The ombudsman findings can be read here.
During January 1999 the borough council accepted the ombudsman’s report and promised to put matters right. However, since they were no longer the acting highway authority for the area they passed the problem over to the county council. The full text of the letter can be read here.
During March 1999 I had a meeting with an engineer from the county council, which I recorded. The engineer produced a set of plans to show how they intended to move the road away from my property.
However, when they approached the bondsman he declined to pay the cost of moving the road from its current position to the planned position because he had a part 1 certificate from the highway authority. That certificate essentially accepts that the road was in the bonded position. So although they could ask him to finish the road they could not legally ask him to move it. However, It couldn’t be finished in its current position because the developer didn’t own the land necessary to finish the roadway in its current position.
Between 1999 and 2000 it was obvious that the county council had no intention of putting matters right. I attempted to enlist the help of the ombudsman to resolve the situation. Even though I had third party evidence in support of my assertions the ombudsman showed no interest and refused to get involved. Save to say that they stated that they were monitoring events.
During 2001 the county council attempted to maladminister their way out of the problem that the borough council had maladministered their way into. As a result I submitted a second complaint to the ombudsman during 2002 about the county council’s actions.
Rather than respond to my complaint the ombudsman ended their involvement with my 1997 complaint. Although the councils had failed to provide the promised remedy the ombudsman refused to write a second report stating that they were happy the borough council had done all they could (in reality nothing).
I resubmitted my second complaint asking the ombudsman for a response. Despite the fact that my complaint including details of the county council’s refusal to consider my complaint the ombudsman responded by stating that I had not given the County Council the opportunity to respond to my complaint before submitting it to them. It was quite clear from their response that they had not even taken the time to read my complaint before turning it down. I had to send another letter pointing out that I had already exhausted the county council complaints procedure and proof of that was included in my complaint.
The ombudsman then suggested that I had not suffered any injustice and as a result they could not investigate my complaint. However, I included documentary evidence of the injustice I had suffered with my 2002 complaint and as a result had to send a further letter pointing that out. Obviously they had still not taken the time to read the complaint before looking for a reason to turn it down.
An assistant ombudsman then wrote to me stating that he had spoken personally to the county council and he was happy they were trying to resolve the problem created by the borough council’s maladministration and as a result the ombudsman would not be investigating my second complaint.
Curious how the ombudsman allows a County Council to maladminister their way out of a problem that a borough council had previously maladministered their way into!
I wrote again to the ombudsman giving them the name and telephone number of a third party witness who would contradict the county council’s assertions that they were trying to resolve the problem. Even more worrying I had previously had a meeting with the county council, which I recorded, during which a Solicitor working for the county council stated that they could have resolved the problem years ago but were essentially looking for a zero cost solution. The ombudsman refused to telephone the witness or look at he evidence.
I then attempted to use the ombudsman’s internal complaints procedure, only to find out that they use the same perverse reasoning to dismiss your internal complaint as they do when protecting the councils.
I then identified the ombudsman’s comeback procedure. This clearly lists four criteria that allows the ombudsman to review their decision not to investigate your complaint. Although you only have to meet one of the criteria for comeback I met all four so my expectation of a successful review was very high. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary the ombudsman refused to change their decision not to investigate my 2002 complaint.
I was (and still am) suffering injustice as a result of maladministration by the borough council and the county council. The local government ombudsman was set up during 1974 to investigate complaints from people that claim to have suffered injustice as a result of public authority maladministration. Unfortunately for me (and thousands of others) the ombudsman no longer carries out that role effectively. Their own figures and polls prove that.
Suffering for 15 years because of council maladministration whilst an ombudsman stands idly by would be bad enough but it now appears that the ombudsman has been assisting the county council by turning a blind eye to the injustice I have had to suffer so the county council could have more time to engineer the zero cost solution they wanted.
Since 1974 the ombudsmen have turned their organisation from one that is supposed to investigate complaints of maladministration into one that attempts to bury complaints of maladministration. Why? Surely it couldn’t be anything to do with the fact that all three current local government ombudsman are ex chief executives of councils.
Having experienced 9 years worth of the ombudsman’s dirty tricks, devious tactics and perverse logic to bury my complaints I decided I was well qualified to expose the problems for the benefit of all complainants and to educate the general public. Don’t forget over 11 million pounds of tax payers money are wasted on this organisation every year.
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