Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint the Council will not include his street in its programme for gritting during wintry weather. Further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault with the way the Council has made its decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr B, complains the Council will not grit his road. Mr B says access can be difficult during bad weather and there are many elderly people living in the street that rely on food deliveries and visits from health professionals.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Mr B provided and the Council’s responses to his complaints. I sent a draft decision to Mr B and invited comments before I made my final decision.

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What I found

4. Images from Google Street view show Mr B lives on a fairly steep residential road. It is a cul-de-sac with grit bins at the top and bottom of the road.
5. In response to Mr B’s complaint, the Council has explained it has priority routes for gritting. Priority 1 routes are the main arterial routes which link Sheffield to other major cities and motorways. Priority 2 routes are other main routes such as bus routes, link roads, roads where key public services are located, and rural routes.
6. As Mr B’s street does not fall in either category, it is not included in the gritting schedule. The Council has told Mr B that the NHS can request a road is gritted, but this must be a formal request and a road cannot be added to the priority routes during the gritting season unless it is an emergency situation.
7. While Mr B wants the Council to agree to grit his road, the Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. It is for the Council to decide on its priorities for carrying out gritting work. The Ombudsman can only criticise the Council if its decisions are affected by fault. Further investigation of the complaint is unlikely to find fault because the Council has considered Mr B’s request, the nature of his road, the availability of grit bins in the road and its priorities for gritting before making its decision.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault with the way the Council has made its decisions.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman