Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with an application for a vehicle crossover. This is because the complaint is late.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, has complained about how the Council dealt with his application for a vehicle crossover in front of his driveway. He says the Council unreasonably delayed his application and significantly increased the cost for the works. Mr X says the Council should honour its original estimate for the crossover and refund his application fee.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered Mr X’s complaint and the Council’s responses. I invited Mr X to comment on a draft of this decision and have considered his comments in response.

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What I found

What happened

5. In 2013, Mr X applied to the Council for a dropped kerb. An officer from the Council visited Mr X and advised he would need to apply for permission to discharge planning conditions relating to his driveway before his application for the dropped kerb could be approved.
6. Mr X applied to discharge the planning conditions in 2016. Following this the Council approved the application for the dropped kerb. However, it accepted there were some delays processing the application. It offered to reduce the fee by £500 to reflect this. Mr X did not accept this offer. He says the cost he is now being quoted for the dropped kerb is significantly higher than the amount he was initially told in 2014.

Assessment

7. I will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Mr X’s application for a dropped kerb. This is because his complaint is late.
8. A complaint is late if it has taken someone more than 12 months to complain to the Ombudsman. Mr X is unhappy with the cost he has been quoted by the Council for the construction of the dropped kerb and says the cost has increased significantly because of the Council’s delays. However, Mr X has known about the increased costs since 2018. Therefore, his complaint about this matter is late and I see no good reason to exercise discretion in this regard as Mr X could have complained to the Ombudsman about the matter sooner.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and there is no good reason to exercise discretion.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman