Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the Council licensing a pub to have tables and chairs on the pavement. The events have not caused Mr X a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly reached its decision to grant a pavement licence to a pub. He reports this has caused him inconvenience and disturbance.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
3. 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 the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mr X provided and information from online maps and photographs of the relevant area. I gave Mr X the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

5. The Council, using a streamlined process under legislation to deal with the COVID-19 situation, licensed a pub to put tables and chairs on the pavement. Mr X passes the pub daily when using his local shops. He complains about how the Council decided to grant the pavement licence.
6. As paragraph 3 explained, we will not necessarily investigate every complaint that a Council is at fault. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to regulate or oversee councils’ activities generally. We must consider whether the alleged fault caused Mr X a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman spending time and public money investigating.
7. Mr X told me the pavement licence affects him in several ways:
1. He now crosses the road to avoid the narrower footway, tobacco smoke and any disruption from pub customers sitting outside. However, in towns people might often make brief detours to avoid walking past certain locations. The point about smoke has to be balanced against anyone being allowed to smoke in the street anyway. The road Mr X crosses might sometimes be busy, but overall I do not consider Mr X making a regular detour across the road amounts to a significant enough injustice for the Ombudsman to investigate.
2. Mr X states there is significant noise at night near his home as people go home from this pub. Noise at pub closing time is not unusual. Nor do I consider that extra noise from people going home could easily be directly linked just to people being allowed to sit outside the pub, rather than to the pub’s existence. So I do not consider this point is a significant injustice resulting directly from the Council granting the pavement licence.
3. Mr X says he now has to spend time supporting a friend who lives very near the pub, who is distressed by noise, smoke and the behaviour of pub customers. The time and effort spent on this results from Mr X’s choice to support his friend. While that choice is natural and understandable, it is not a significant injustice resulting directly and necessarily from the Council granting the pavement licence.
8. Mr X’s friend and anyone else who believes the pavement licence significantly affects them can, of course, make their own complaints.
9. Mr X is also dissatisfied that the application for the pavement licence was not properly publicised. As Mr X was anyway aware of the application and able to object, this point did not cause him a significant injustice.

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Final decision

10. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the matters complained of have not caused Mr X a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman