A man has claimed that a sinking road has ‘damaged’ his property as Buckinghamshire Council ‘put barriers on his lawn’.

The resident complained that the council had not fixed a road defect next to his property for several years and had closed his report about the issue.

Known only as ‘Mr X’, he reported the unitary authority to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

However, the watchdog said in a decision this week that it would not investigate the events leading up to April 2023, in part due to there ‘not being enough evidence of council fault’.

Mr X claimed that part of the road near his home was sinking, causing damage to his property due to his garden and drive ‘sloping towards it’.

He claimed that the defect affects larger vehicles as they get stuck and that barriers the council put around the area were partly on his lawn, meaning he could not maintain it.

The resident said he had reported the sinking road to the council for four years, although the ombudsman expects complaints about a council within 12 months of a person becoming aware of an issue.

The ombudsman said: “The council’s barriers around the area include part of his front garden, but the impact on Mr X being unable to maintain that part of his lawn is low.”

It added that although Mr X would be ‘annoyed’ by the problem, there was ‘insufficient’ injustice to him to warrant an investigation.