Darlington Borough Council (19 004 908)
Category : Environment and regulation > Antisocial behaviour
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 16 Aug 2019
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to take action over people in his street owning particular brands of car. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. There is no evidence of any fault by the Council which would warrant an investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains that the Council will not evict people on the street where he lives who own cars of a brand which causes him upset and mental health problems.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
- it is unlikely we would find fault, or
- the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
- it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered all the information which Mr X submitted with his complaint.
What I found
- Mr X says he moved to an area where there are no cars of certain German brands because they cause him to be anxious and stressed. He says there are now several homes with these cars on his street. He asked the Council to evict the owners of these cars or to buy back his home.
- The Council told him it cannot evict householders, some who are not tenants just because of their choice of car ownership. It advised him to contact a social worker if the presence of these cars causes him anxiety.
Final decision
- The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. There is no evidence of any fault by the Council which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman