Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the loss of public rights of way and open spaces as part of the regeneration of South Kilburn. This is because the complainant has not identified any specific faults in the delivery of the project within the last year or so, and we would not normally consider the Council’s associated complaints process in isolation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, says the Council has failed to properly consider public rights of way and open spaces in the regeneration of South Kilburn under the 2016 Masterplan for the area, and says the Council has avoided responding to his associated complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. We use 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. We refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused a personal injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. But we cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. And we can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into any complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
5. In that regard, we will not normally investigate a complaint where the complainant is using their enquiry as a way of raising a wider political or community campaign.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered:
• Mr B’s emails to the Ombudsman dated 12, 13 and 18 November;
• The Council’s response to Mr B’s complaint;
• Mr B’s responses to a draft version of this statement;
• The Ombudsman’s decisions on previous complaints by Mr B.

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What I found

Summary of what happened

7. Mr B complained to the Council that it was not protecting established public rights of way or open spaces as part of the regeneration of the South Kilburn area.
8. The Council said Mr B’s enquiry had not been registered as a formal complaint. It referred back to the Ombudsman’s 2016 decision on a related complaint, and explained that under the Council’s criteria for defining a complaint, it generally involves a customer raising concerns about specific individual injustice rather than broader policy issues. The Council also said “the Masterplan for the area sets out the rights of way through the estate, of which there are plenty, along with new public and open spaces…..Once completed the estate will have better connectivity and better quality open and public spaces.”
9. Mr B felt the Council should have looked at his concerns afresh, instead of referring to the Ombudsman’s earlier decision, and should have provided a more detailed response.

Assessment

10. I asked Mr B to identify any specific actions/events that he had become aware of in the last year or so, where he felt the Council had failed to properly consider public rights of way/open spaces as part of the planning/redevelopment process for South Kilburn. He did not specify any.
11. As there do not appear to be any substantive/underlying planning issues for the Ombudsman to consider, we would not normally investigate Mr B’s concerns about the associated complaints process in isolation. With reference to paragraphs 4 and 5 above, I see no reasons to depart from this approach here.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint. This is because he has not identified any specific fault by the Council in the delivery of the 2016 South Kilburn Masterplan within the last 12 months, and there are insufficient grounds to consider the Council’s associated complaints process in isolation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman