Summary
Mr C was cycling on a designated cycle-path in a public park when a dog ran into him. As a result, Mr C was thrown from his bicycle. Five months later, he reported the accident and asked the council to serve a warning notice on the owner of the dog. Some seven months after that, the council responded advising that their management rules for parks did not allow for notices to be served on dog owners.
Mr C was dissatisfied with the council's response and the time they took to provide it and raised his complaints with us. On investigating, we decided that the council's position regarding the enforcement of management rules was reasonable but that they had taken an unreasonable time to respond to his enquiries. As the council had already apologised for the delay itself, however, we recommended only that they apologise further to Mr C.
Recommendation We recommended that the council: • apologise to Mr C for not providing him with an explanation for their delay in responding to his contact or outlining the steps they had taken to ensure the delay would not be repeated.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201103133 as a PDF (21.78 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018