Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to prevent flooding of the highway in January 2026. There is insufficient evidence of fault or significant injustice which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to prevent flooding on the road in his area.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

My assessment

6. Mr X complained about the road near his home flooding on a day in January 2026, making the road impassable. He says that this is due to poor highway drainage and he made a complaint about this to us in 2025 reference 25005694. The Council says it has changed its maintenance policy since his previous complaint and the road in question remains on an annual cleansing programme.
7. Incidents of highway flooding following adverse weather are dealt with on a reactive basis and the location which Mr X reported is subject to a wider ongoing investigation. The investigation is to determine if there are other underlying problems with the drainage and the Council says the investigation will be completed by September this year.
8. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
9. Councils as highway authorities must decide their own priority system for highway drainage cleaning and temporary flooding incidents resulting from weather which drainage cannot cope with is not uncommon in England. The highway authority will decide what works may be required if defects are identified following its investigation.

Back to top

Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to prevent flooding of the highway in January 2026. There is insufficient evidence of fault or significant injustice which would warrant an investigation.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman