Summary: The complaint is about the Council not locking a park. The Ombudsman will not pursue this complaint because the matter complained of does not cause Mr B significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains the Council is not closing a park in the evenings. Mr B states this attracts drug-dealing and gangs, making the area feel unsafe.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or 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

3. I considered the information Mr B provided and online maps of the area. I gave Mr B the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

4. Mr B lives over 250 metres from the park in question, with other streets and houses between his home and the park. As paragraph 2 explained, the Ombudsman will only pursue a complaint if the person complaining is affected significantly enough to justify the Ombudsman devoting time and money to an investigation. Therefore I asked Mr B how the activities when the park is not locked affect him.
5. Mr B replied he has family living in the road next to the park. I have established with Mr B that none of those people is seeking to complain to the Ombudsman using Mr B as their representative; he is making his own complaint.
6. Given the distance between Mr B’s home and the park, I do not consider any antisocial or illegal behaviour in the park or its immediate vicinity disadvantages Mr B significantly enough for the Ombudsman to investigate. I appreciate that, as Mr B has relatives living nearer, he could naturally be concerned about the impact on them. However, I do not consider such concern about others amounts to a significant enough injustice injustice to warrant investigation by the Ombudsman.
7. There is a separate question about whether the impact on people (Mr B’s relatives or others) living near the park is significant enough for the Ombudsman to investigate. However, as the complaint is not from people in that position, we cannot currently pursue that point.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because the matters complained of do not cause Mr B a significant enough injustice for the Ombudsman to investigate.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman