Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Ms X's complaints about flooding on a residential road. This is because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council has not adequately responded to her complaints about how it has dealt with flooding on residential roads.
2. Ms X says the roads regularly flood which means she has to drive through water to visit her family. She would like the Council to carry out repairs and to communicate better with residents.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X made a number of reports of flooding to the Council through December 2025 to February 2026.
8. In February Ms X complained the Council has known of the issues since 2020 and has not done enough to repair the issue.
9. The Council responded to say it would not respond to the matter under its complaints process as it was taking action by treating her reports as service requests. It said it needed to be given time to deal with the service request before it would deal with it as a complaint.
10. Ms X brought her complaint to the Ombudsman.
11. In its contact with this office, the Council has confirmed it has carried out investigations and has work planned to address the flooding within the next three months.
12. We will not investigate what happened in 2020 as this complaint is late and ther is no good reason to look at it now.
13. As remedial action is already planned, an investigation by this office would not add to the current position in any meaningful way.
14. Further, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman