A MAN planted trees on a roadside after being given misleading advice by North Yorkshire County Council, the local government Ombudsman has found.

A report by Patricia Thomas said that the county council has agreed to return £550 to the complainant, who lives in the Harrogate Borough Council area, and to pay a reasonable proportion of his legal costs.

Mrs Thomas said she considered that this would represent a satisfactory local settlement to the complaint.

The Ombudsman said the council gave the complainant misleading advice when he approached the authority about planting the trees in an attempt to tidy up an overgrown area of grass verge near his property.

Trees were planted on the basis of that advice but the council then said a licence was needed.

Acting on further advice from the authority, the complainant paid a fee so that the land on which the trees stood would cease to be part of the highway with permission from a magistrates' court. Mrs Thomas said this advice was also misleading.