Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to prevent the private road on which she lives from being accessed by tankers and traffic from a nearby estate. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because it concerns matters which she was aware of for more than the normal 12-month period for receiving complaints. It also concerns access to a private road which is a legal matter between residents and the other users.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, complains about the Council’s failure to prevent access by vehicles onto a private road which residents pay to maintain. She says the Council could remedy the situation if it made a nearby road one-way. This would alleviate the need to use the private road by traffic which is causing maintenance problems for residents.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered all the information which Mrs X submitted with her complaint. I have also considered the Council’s response.

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What I found

5. Mrs X lives on a private road which is not adopted by the highway authority for maintenance. She says that removal of bollards by the Borough Council from its own land in the past has allowed estate traffic to use the road which is open for public use. This has led to an increase in traffic and tankers attending the site to dispose of sewage sludge from septic tanks.
6. The Borough Council removed the bollards from its land several years ago and no residents complained to us at the time. Mrs X complained to the County Council in 2017 asking for it to change the status of a nearby road to one-way. The Council disagreed that this would be a solution at the time. We can normally only investigate complaints about matters which the complainant became aware of in the past 12 months. The complaints about tankers and traffic has been ongoing for several decades.
7. The road is not adopted by the highway authority and it is a private matter between residents and the water authority to resolve disputes about access.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because it concerns matters which she was aware of for more than the normal 12-month period for receiving complaints. It also concerns access to a private road which is a legal matter between residents and the other users, not the highway authority.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman