Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the removal of a dropped kerb serving her property. The Council’s actions did not cause Miss X injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains about the removal of a dropped kerb serving the rear of her property. She says she cannot access her garage and wants the Council to reinstate the dropped kerb.

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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:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• 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 reviewed Miss X’s complaint and the Council’s response. I shared my draft decision with Miss X and invited her comments.

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What I found

4. Miss X owns a property with a long back garden. The back garden opens onto a road at the rear of the property and has a garage facing onto the road. Historically there was a dropped kerb providing access for the previous owner to drive their car over the grass verge and into the garage.
5. The kerb was reinstated as part of work to deliver a new housing development in 2017. The previous owner of the property, Mr Y, asked the Council to put back the dropped kerb but it explained cars should not drive over the grass verge. It advised Mr Y he would need to apply for a vehicle crossover which met current specifications.
6. Miss X purchased the property several months later. She then contacted the Council about the removal of the dropped kerb. The Council advised her as it had advised Mr Y and explained it would not pay to put in a dropped kerb and vehicle crossover. Miss X complained to the Council in January 2019 and brought her complaint to the Ombudsman in July 2019.
7. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. The Council reinstated the kerb to the rear of the property in 2017, before Miss X purchased the property. Its actions date to more than 12 months before Miss X’s complaint to the Ombudsman and did not affect her at the time. Miss X is only affected by the issue now because of her decision to purchase the property and she would have been aware there was no dropped kerb at the time. We could not therefore say the Council’s actions caused her injustice or that she would have had any reasonable expectation that the Council would pay to reinstate the dropped kerb and put in place a vehicle crossover. If access to the garage was critical to Miss X’s use of the property it was for her to negotiate a reduction to cover the cost of reinstatement and risk of refusal with the seller.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Miss X injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman