Clause 7 - Appeal against remedial notice or decision of relevant authority
High Hedges Bill
11:00 am
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Coventry North East, Labour)
I shall clarify the position as best I can, according to my understanding of the Bill. Hon. Members will notice that, although local authorities are not to be tied down to a specific period within which they must deal with a complaint, the word ``reasonable'' is used. If a local authority were to fail to process complaints that it had received in what was deemed to be a reasonable time, recourse could be had to the local ombudsman, just as in cases of maladministration brought against a local authority.
As the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said, in the event of a complaint being either upheld or rejected, all parties would have to be properly notified of the local authority's decision and any appeal would have to be made within 28 days. That does not mean that action to rectify the problem with the hedge would have to be taken within 28 days; for that, an appropriate compliance period would be set. I understand that concerns have been raised about the impact on wildlife if people were required to cut down hedges at certain times of year. The local authority could take such issues into account when setting the compliance period. However, once the local authority had notified all parties of its decision to reject or accept a complaint and of the action required, there would be a period of only 28 days in which either party could appeal to the Secretary of State against the decision.