TRAFFORD council has been forced to apologise to a resident and pay him £250 after the Local Government Ombudsman investigated a complaint about refuse collection and council housing repairs.

The Ombudsman, Patricia Thomas, investigated a complaint from Mr Shepherd (not his real name) that the council:

l had imposed a wheeled bin refuse collection service on tenants in 'Bevan House' - a council owned block of flats - without properly consulting the tenants.

l had failed to repair the ventilation system within his flat

l had failed to give him proper notice of times when it intended to take the lift out of service

l had acted in an unreasonable way to try to get him to resign as chairman of the residents' association.

The ombudsman upheld his first complaint.

Mr Shepherd also claimed that the council's failure to repair the ventilation system in his flat made his asthma worse.

The ventilation system was switched off at night as it made too much noise. But inspectors recommended it should be on 24 hours a day to allow air to circulate between the flats.

The system is still switched off at night.

The ombudsman ordered the council to pay Mr Shepherd £250 for aggravating his asthma.

But Ms Thomas wrote: "I accept that the council switches the system off at night to reduce noise and it has to balance the nuisance caused by noise against the nuisance caused by the permeation of fumes."

His complaint about the lifts was rejected.

In 1997 Mr Shepherd served four years in jail for defrauding his employers, his church and a number of elderly people of sums totalling almost £200,000. He was released on licence in September 1999 and was allocated a one bedroom flat at Bevan House in April 2000.

In March 2001 the Bevan House residents' association was formed and at a steering committee meeting on March 28 Mr Shepherd agreed to stand for election as chairman.

But on May 17 officers from the good neighbour unit visited him to discuss his 'proposed position in the community'.

He was voted chairman but the council refused to formally recognise the association.

Trafford has now accepted a model constitution that requires candidates for election at residents associations to disclose convictions. But at the time of Mr Shepherd's election the model constitution did not contain these safeguards.

The ombudsman found there to be no significant injustice to Mr Shepherd in this matter, but she said the council was guilty of maladministration in refusing to recognise a properly constituted association.

Head of legal and democratic services, Beverley Dunn, confirmed that the council will be responding formally in due course to the findings of the Ombudsman's report.

She said the council acknowledged that the Ombudsman's report contains findings that there had been maladministration causing injustice against the council.

She said: "The council was however encouraged to see that the Ombudsman did not find against the council in respect of the accusation that it 'acted in an unreasonable way to try to get Mr Shepherd to resign as the chair of the tenants and residents association.'"

She continued: "Given this knowledge and the concerns the council had, it believes that it acted responsibly in the circumstances and this would seem to have been acknowledged by the Ombudsman in her report".