Cheshire East Council (25 016 098)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 03 Mar 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about missed household waste collections. There is not enough injustice to justify our involvement. The Council has apologised for the disruption and inconvenience and it is unlikely we would achieve anything further.
The complaint
- Mr B said the Council failed to collect his household waste for five weeks. Bin bags piled up, attracted vermin, and Mr B had to take them to the waste recycling centre. Mr B wants a compensation payment.
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
- further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We do not investigate all complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
- When it comes to waste collections, mistakes can happen, and from time-to-time most people will have a missed collection. We would not normally investigate complaints where there have only been a couple of missed collections or one-off problems. So, we will not investigate Mr B’s complaint, because the injustice caused is not significant enough to justify our continued involvement in the case.
- The Council has apologised for the inconvenience and disruption caused by the missed collections, and it is unlikely we would achieve anything further.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because there is not a significant enough injustice to justify our involvement, and it is unlikely we would achieve anything further than the apology the Council has already given.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman