Kent County Council (24 012 521)

Category : Transport and highways > Highway repair and maintenance

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 28 Nov 2024

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about highway maintenance because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

  1. Mr Y complained the Council has failed to properly maintain the verges near his home.
  2. Mr Y says the lack of maintenance poses a potential hazard for pedestrians and drivers and is unsightly and not visually appealing. He says the lack of action by the Council has caused him frustration.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide 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), as amended, section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information Mr Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

  1. Mr Y is unhappy with the lack of maintenance of verges along his road. He is concerned this will encourage litter, vermin and looks untidy.
  2. The Council investigated the issue and found that the verges were not adopted by the Council. This means the Council are not currently under a duty to maintain the verges. They have therefore not breach a duty, as currently they do not have one. The Council has, in the absence of a clear owner of the verges, agreed it will act to try to adopt the verges. This can take some time, but will mean that if successfully adopted, the verges will be maintained by the Council in future.
  3. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered a serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss of injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
  4. In this case, while Mr Y may feel strongly about the issue, He has not suffered a sufficiently serious loss, harm or distress as a result of any fault by the Council. Consequently, as we must use public resources carefully, we will not investigate his complaint.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings