The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint that the Council is taking too long to re-surface two roads which are in a dangerous condition. This is because it is unlikely an investigation would achieve a meaningful outcome.
The complaint
Mr B complains two local roads are in a very poor condition but the Council does not plan to re-surface these roads until summer 2026. Mr B says it is very difficult to avoid all the potholes on these roads which are dangerous to road users. Mr B says the Council should re-surface these roads as soon as possible once funding is available in early April.
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 an investigation if we decide: an investigation would not lead to a different outcome, 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 B.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council as a local highways authority has a statutory duty to maintain adopted streets. The Council is expected to routinely monitor the state of highways and carry out repairs where necessary. But importantly, the level of maintenance, frequency of inspection, and threshold for repair is not set out in law and is open to interpretation.
We take the view the courts are in the best position to decide whether a council has complied with this statutory duty to maintain a highway. This is not a straightforward assessment.
The courts would normally make such a decision when a person takes a council to court to pursue a compensation claim for vehicle damage or personal injury caused by highway disrepair.
But, even if we decided to treat this complaint as an exception, it is highly unlikely an investigation would be a good use of our limited resources or achieve a meaningful outcome for Mr B.
There is a high demand for our service and we have set timescales for each stage of our investigation process. The Council says it will re-surface these roads in summer 2026. Even if we started an investigation and found the Council was at fault, it is unlikely this would result in the Council undertaking these re-surfacing works earlier than already scheduled.
So, we will not investigate this complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because an investigation would not achieve a meaningful outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman