Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s maintenance of the road on which he lives. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify an investigation. Even if there were fault, the matters complained of do not cause Mr X such significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives on a residential road. He complains the Council:
1. is ignoring repair issues on the road;
2. has allowed third parties to dig up the road and not reinstate it properly.
2. Mr X considers he should not have to live on a road in such disrepair for the council tax he pays. He wants the Council to resurface the road.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mr X, online maps and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council says it inspects its roads at least twice a year. But some faults, including those from reinstated road surfacing after excavation by third party utility firms, will happen in between inspections. It would not be fault for a council not to know about all defects on its roads before they are reported. It would be impractical to try to identify them all before receiving reports from residents.
6. In response to Mr X’s reports and complaints of road disrepair, the Council inspected, found defects requiring work according to its criteria, and fixed them. I realise Mr X may consider the repairs on his road are not up to an appropriate standard. But the Council has set its road condition criteria so officers are satisfied the road is safe and useable by vehicle traffic. The Council is entitled to set and apply those criteria. Where its officers consider the road has not been properly reinstated by a third party, they require the relevant party to return to fix it. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s response to Mr X’s concerns or in its approach to road repairs to warrant an investigation.
7. In any event, even if I am wrong and there was Council fault here, there is not enough significant personal injustice to Mr X from the issues raised to justify investigating. I recognise Mr X may be annoyed by disrepair, and by what he sees as inadequate repairs which make the road less smooth. But Mr X having to drive to and from his house on a more uneven road surface than he would like is not a sufficiently significant injustice to him to warrant us investigating.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault to warrant us investigating; and
• even if there were such fault, there is not enough significant personal injustice caused by the matters complained of to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman