The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to Mr X’s complaints about parking provision concerns. There is no significant injustice.
The complaint
Mr X told the Council on numerous occasions about a neighbour who was persistently blocking access to on street parking, including bays that were marked for residents’ use. Mr X said this has caused him unnecessary stress and he wants the Council to resolve his complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide: any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X lives on a road that is available for resident parking, who are charged a fee for permits, as well as other road users under a ‘pay and display’ scheme. Mr X told the Council about numerous instances where a neighbour was blocking access to some of the parking bays and Mr X told the Council this then limited the parking available to him.
From the complaint correspondence the Council set out its response and invited Mr X to tell it when these instances were happening, and it would take action where it could. Mr X was unhappy because he wanted the Council to permanently resolve the issues he complained about, because he said it was a frequent occurrence.
Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures.
We will not investigate this complaint because the Council’s actions have not caused Mr X a significant injustice. It is not liable for the actions of his neighbour and there is no guarantee a parking space will always be available for Mr X, because it is a public road.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman