Summary: Mrs B complains the Council has not taken action to make sure the pavement on her road is safe and even, that the traffic is at a reasonable speed and the surface water drainage is sufficient. Mrs B finds it hard to walk on the sloping pavement and the traffic is too fast for her to use the road instead. There was no fault by the Council. It has inspected the pavement and carried out improvement work to make it more even. It has surveyed the traffic speed and found it below the speed limit. It regularly cleans and inspects the drainage gullies.

The complaint

1. Mrs B complains the Council has not properly considered her request to make improvements to the pavement close to her home, and to improve road safety on the street. Mrs B is elderly and ill. She finds it very difficult to walk on the sloping pavement and sometimes walks on the road as it is more level. However, the traffic is fast, and this is not safe. Mrs B also asked the Council to inspect the drainage on the road.

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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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A (1), as amended)
3. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered the information provided by the complainant and discussed the complaint with her. I have also considered the Council’s response to my enquiries including the correspondence between the parties and the Council’s file records. I have not visited the street, but I have used online maps to get a street view of the pavements. Both parties have had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this statement. I have taken the comments of both parties into account.

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What I found

7. The government has issued a Manual for Streets. This is expected to be used predominantly for the design of new streets but is also applicable to the redesign of existing streets. This says:
• There is no maximum width for footways and the minimum footway should generally be 2 metres.
• Designers should attempt to keep pedestrian routes as near to level as possible along their length and width. Gradients should ideally be no more than 5% where this is possible.
• Where it is necessary to provide vehicle crossovers, the normal footway cross-fall should be maintained as far as practicable from the back of the foot way to a minimum of 900mm.
• Designers need to ensure that pedestrian arears are properly drained.

What happened

8. Mrs B lives in a residential area. She is elderly and struggles with mobility. The pavement on her street slopes and has several driveways. Mrs B finds it difficult to walk on the uneven pavement and so walks on the road which is more level. But this is dangerous, and she says cars travel too fast.
9. Mrs B asked the Council to make the pavement more level. Mrs B suggested the Council make it wider and decrease the gradient. In 2012, the Council altered the slope of the vehicle crossover near to her home. It levelled the pavement at the rear and before making a slope towards the kerb and the road. The Council is satisfied that this is in accordance with the Manual for Streets. It also inspected the other crossovers in the street and found that there was no need for improvements and no defects.
10. Mrs B continued to raise her concerns with the Council. Its records show that it inspected the street again twice in September and once in October 2018. The Council inspected the pavement and said there were no defects and that it met the Council’s repair criteria. The crossovers meet the standards of the Manual for Streets.
11. The Council told Mrs B that it could not make the pavement more level without removing the neighbours’ driveways, and these had been there since at least 1994. The Council decided that it would not make any changes to the pavement at that time.
12. Mrs B also asked the Council to consider traffic calming measures as she said the traffic regularly went too fast, breaking the 30mph speed limit on her road. In July 2018, Mrs B submitted a petition of around 175 signatures, asking the Council to meet with them to discuss how to resolve this and to take enforcement action against speeding motorists.
13. The Council carried out a week long automatic speed survey which records the actual speed of every vehicle crossing the equipment. The Council installed the equipment as close to Mrs B’s home as possible, and also in the adjoining street. The accepted practice is to use the speed at or below which 85% of the traffic is travelling. For Mrs B’s road, this was 25.9mph. The Council says this reflects that the road is narrow and already has some traffic calming measures and is what it would expect for a residential road close to a town centre.
14. The Council also took into account accident data and found there had been one in the last three years. The Council decided that there was no reason to take further action to reduce the speed of traffic. The Council wrote to Mrs B to tell her this.
15. Mrs B asked the Council to consider the uneven pavement and the traffic speed at stage two of its complaints process. She said the pavement must be widened, this would make it more level and slow the traffic down. She asked the Council to meet with her and also mentioned that the road drainage needs attention.
16. The Council said it would not alter the pavement further. In response to my enquiries it has confirmed that there are two surface water gullies to drain this part of the road. The Council cleans these twice yearly when it also inspects them and has found no defects to date.

Was there fault by the Council causing an injustice to Mrs B?

17. I appreciate that there are a large number of vehicle crossovers in Mrs B’s road, and with limited mobility, her concerns are genuine.
18. However, the Council has ensured that as far as possible, these meet the government standards, and did alter the crossover nearest her house to make it more level. The Council has responded to Mrs B’s complaints and enquiries. It has inspected the road and pavement for defects that might cause pedestrians problems, and it has reached a decision not to do further work based on its inspections and with regard to the Manual for Streets. There is no clear flaw in how the Council has reached its position and so there is no basis for me to criticise it. There was no fault by the Council.
19. The Council also properly considered Mrs B’s concerns about road safety and speeding traffic. Mrs B says the traffic calming measures are on a different part of the street. However, the data from the speed survey and the very low number of collisions does not support the Council taking action to slow the traffic. There was no fault by the Council when it decided not to take further action here.
20. The Council regularly maintains and inspects the drainage gullies and has found no defects. There have been no other complaints of flooding or poor drainage by residents.
21. Mrs B would like an independent inspection of the site and another traffic survey. Whilst I do understand Mrs B’s concerns about the safety of residents, there is no clear fault in how the Council has decided not to take the action she requested. And so, there is no basis for me to recommend the Council do any more here.

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Final decision

22. I have completed my investigation. There is no fault by the Council in the matters complained about.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman