Royal Borough of Greenwich (26 010 571)
Category : Transport and highways > Highway repair and maintenance
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 28 Jul 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s concerns about a highway repair issue. This is because the Council has resolved the substantive issue and any remaining injustice is not significant enough to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the Council failed to properly investigate how it came to pave over a gas chamber serving Mr X’s property and took too long to resolve the issue. He is also unhappy the Council has decided against making any improvements to its processes to stop the issue happening again.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 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))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
- I understand Mr X was concerned about what could have happened and went to some time and trouble to resolve the matter with the Council, but the Council has now resolved the issue and any remaining injustice is not significant enough to warrant investigation or any financial remedy.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Mr X significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman