The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We found no fault by the Council on Miss J’s complaint about it failing to properly investigate and resolve her neighbours’ antisocial behaviour. We are satisfied the Council responded to her reports and acted on them.
The complaint
Miss J complains the Council failed to properly investigate and resolve her neighbour’s antisocial behaviour: as a result, her mental and physical health suffered, and she cannot afford to sell her property to move away.
What I have investigated I have not investigated all of Miss J’s complaints which date back about 11 years. The paragraph at the end of this statement explains why.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended) We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered all the information Miss J sent, the notes my colleague made of their telephone conversation, and the Council’s response to our enquiries. I sent a copy of my draft decision to Miss J and the Council. I considered Miss J’s response. I have been unable to refer to much of the evidence the Council sent as this contains information about third parties which needs to remain confidential.
What I found
Miss J has lived in her home for about 10 years. Throughout her time there, she has been regularly disturbed by her neighbours. The disturbance is caused by: noise during the night from power tools; dogs barking; intimidating visitors to the neighbours’ property; rats; problems with drug dealing at the property; trespassing on to her land; scrap cars on the property in which people slept; the storage of scrap. She also witnessed violence around the property with visitors fighting and shouting. Miss J complains the neighbours’ back garden is full of dog faeces and the fire brigade visited several times because of burning plastic and other waste.
The antisocial behaviour team (ASB team) was involved, and the environmental protection team (EP team) went to court to get a temporary injunction against the neighbours. She is concerned about repercussions from the neighbours as she was told she would have to attend court. She is unhappy the Council failed to give her advice or support.
She complains the EP team closed the case on different occasions without telling her. When requesting an out of hours visit, it could take officers up to two hours to visit. She complains they took too long to act on information provided and failed to properly monitor the site for breaches of the injunction. The neighbour had until the end of February 2022 to clear the whole site under the injunction which they failed to do so.
Antisocial behaviour team Miss J first contacted the ASB team in 2019. She complains she sent the Council video evidence of her neighbour and his friends spitting on her drive and ripping out the boundary fence, for example. By the time officers viewed it, they said the incidents were not recent enough. Despite 18 months of reporting the neighbours’ behaviour, she says the Council did nothing. The ASB team took two months to tell her it closed her case, during which time she continued to send diary logs.
She claims communication between the ASB team and EP team was poor.
Miss J also contacted the Council about her neighbours’ behaviour in November 2020. She does not accept the ASB team’s Victim Support officer began to support her until the team closed the case in June 2021.
The Council explained not being able to tell complainants when a warning or notice is served, or give details of wider actions taken, may have caused Miss J some anxiety. Due to the regularity and volume of reports from her, officers were always confident of witnessing acts during the day or during the out of hours service which runs six nights a week between 8pm and 2am. It said officers were in regular contact with her and shared information between departments and agencies. It explained there were times when officers could not visit because of Covid-19. The country was in national lockdown between January and March 2021.
The evidence shows Miss J was aware of the Council serving a community protection notice (CPN) on her neighbour towards the end of 2020. While Miss J may not know the full details of the notice, she was aware of it because officers’ emails to her on 3 and 7 December 2020 referred to it.
The records show in April 2021, following a case review, the ASB team noted it had been picking up work from Community Enforcement. The team felt Community Enforcement had encouraged this as it was reluctant to take on the case. The team noted there was nothing for it to investigate since at least January 2021. In these circumstances, it would normally have closed the case. The team decided to email Community Enforcement as the case needed to be wholly with them. Community Enforcement are responsible for enforcement of accumulations on private land and residential noise, for example.
The team decided the neighbours’ behaviour was not antisocial behaviour as it was not purposely directed at Miss J. This was a lifestyle clash between Miss J and her neighbours. Since the start of the year, reports from her were mainly about flies, smoke, dogs barking, noise, material in the garden which moved and crashed when the wind picked up, vermin, chemical smells, visitors, suspected drug involvement, vehicles without MOTs, and interference with her fence and boundary. The ASB team closed its case in June 2021.
My findings
The main difficulty with this complaint is my inability to share, or directly refer to, all the relevant information I have seen from the Council. I am unable to do so because information about third parties needs to remain confidential. This means Miss J has to accept much of what I say on trust, without seeing, or getting told, full details of the information I have seen. I realise this is far from ideal for her.
On balance, having reviewed all the evidence, I am satisfied there was no fault by the Council on this complaint. While I cannot fully set out the evidence and reasoning behind my conclusion, I note the following: Towards the end of 2020, as Miss J is aware, the Council issued a CPN. The evidence I can refer to following this shows there was: liaison between Council officers and the police; multi-agency meetings; visits to the site by officers in response to her reports; an attempt to arrange mediation between her and her neighbours.
While there was some delay with arranging mediation, the evidence shows the reason for it was not within the Council’s control. Nor was the Council responsible for why it ultimately did not take place.
The evidence shows the Council had valid reasons for not trying to enforce the CPN despite the evidence Miss J sent. I am not able to explain why this was the case.
The evidence shows the ASB team contacting the EP team in March 2021, for example, about the need to look at alternative options in terms of enforcement. The EP team was already involved at this point.
The following month, after a case review, the ASB team thought there appeared to be some reluctance by the EP team to take on the case fully as many of the issues Miss J raised were matters for it, and not matters of antisocial behaviour.
The evidence shows there was ongoing communication between the two teams.
The ASB team carried out a review of the case in June 2021 and after this, wrote to Miss J explaining it would now close her case. This was because there were no incidents over the last six months amounting to antisocial behaviour it could action. While the evidence shows the ASB team thought this was the case for a few months before the review, I am not satisfied this affected Miss J in a negative way. This is because the records show ASB team officers were not only supportive towards her but, passed on her information and reports to other relevant teams, for example.
I am also satisfied Miss J received support not only from the ASB team itself but, from the Victim Support Officer.
EP Team Miss J complains the team seemed reluctant to visit the site and closed the case on several occasions without telling her. She is unhappy with its decision not to install noise monitoring equipment despite loud music, television and dogs barking all through the day and night. When they attended, this could be up to two hours later. Parts of the injunction needed monitoring, but she is unhappy officers relied on her to do it.
In response to our enquiries, the Council said the team was heavily involved with her case and acted when it had reliable quality evidence. A number of multi-agency meetings were started as a result. Noise monitoring was ruled out as it decided officers visiting and witnessing a nuisance would be more accurate. This in turn would allow it to take stronger action. Using officers to witness nuisance before this date meant it could also rely on them when taking enforcement action rather than her. It also explained it was only in March 2021 Miss J confirmed she would attend court as a witness in any legal enforcement proceedings it took.
My findings
On balance, I found no fault on this complaint. In reaching this view, I note the following: There is much overlap with the points I have already made about the ASB team. The evidence shows information Miss J sent, including videos and photographs for example, was considered by officers.
The evidence also shows extensive contact between Miss J and the EP team during 2021. The EP team’s case notes detail the contact officers had with Miss J, third parties, the police, and its own legal team. It shows there were regular discussions with the legal team, especially about evidence and available options.
In April 2021, the same month the ASB team raised the issue of its own continued involvement, the EP team took action which I am unable to refer to directly.
The records show EP team officers visiting the site in response to Miss J’s reports where they did not find evidence of a statutory nuisance. During some visits, officers gathered evidence of what they witnessed.
Officers were unable to visit out of hours on every report Miss J made but, I am satisfied they visited when they could, gathered evidence, and acted when they witnessed a problem.
In June, the EP team took further action but again, I am unable to provide details.
In October, the EP team took further action, details of which I am unable to give.
In February 2022, further action was taken, details of which I am unable to provide. While I might question why this particular action was not taken sooner, I note there was some overlap with the action taken in October 2021.
I considered Miss J’s complaint about the EP team closing her case without telling her. The records I have seen for the EP team show its continuous involvement with her case throughout 2021, for example.
The Council provided an update about the current position but, I am unable to directly refer to it.
Final decision
I found no fault on Miss J’s complaint against the Council.
Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate I investigated the Council’s actions from November 2020 only and not before. This is because the law says we cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended) Miss J first complained to us in November 2021, but we decided her complaint had not had the opportunity to go through the Council’s complaints procedure. This is why I exercised discretion to look at her complaint from November 2020.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman