Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council deciding not to do work to the grass verge on the highway outside his house. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision‑making process, nor significant personal injustice caused to Mr X by the matters complained of, to warrant us investigating. We also cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in a house in residential road with a grass verge to the front, between the footpath and the roadway. Neighbours’ vehicles drive and park on the verge.
2. Mr X complains the Council has refused to repair the verge. He says vehicles move mud from the damaged verge on to the footpath. Mr X wants the Council to replace the grass verge with a hard surface.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mr X and the Council, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We are not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation has followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, even if someone disagrees with it.
7. In response to Mr X’s reports about the condition of the verge, a Council officer visited to inspect it and meet Mr X. They sent staff to do some repair work on the verge but Mr X did not consider this was adequate. The Council’s highways inspector later revisited the site to assess it. Officers then contacted Mr X to advise they did not have a budget to do further works to replace the grass or install bollards to stop people parking on it. They made a decision not to do works because their inspections determined the verge currently posed insufficient hazard to highway users to receive more works.
8. It is for officers to gather evidence and apply their professional judgement to decide where the Council uses its highway resources, including which repairs to prioritise. That is the process they followed here. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making processes in prioritising its road works to warrant an investigation. We realise Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
9. Even if there were Council fault in its decision not to do work to the verge, we would not investigate. We recognise Mr X is understandably annoyed by the ongoing state of the verge and by the mud from it which is deposited on the footway. But that annoyance is not a sufficiently significant personal injustice to him to warrant us investigating here.
10. The outcome Mr X wants from his complaint is for the Council to replace the grass verge with hardstanding. The Council says that if it considers the condition of the verge causes a sufficient hazard in future, it would put down road planings to make the area safe. We cannot order councils to do specific works to the highway. That we cannot achieve the outcome Mr X seeks is a further reason why we will not investigate.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault to warrant an investigation; and
• the matters complained of do not cause him sufficient significant personal injustice to justify is investigating; and
• we cannot achieve the outcome he seeks from the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman