Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to monitor whether defects in the highway are causing Mr X’s garage to flood. That is because there is insufficient evidence of fault to warrant further investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s decision to monitor whether defects in the highway were causing his garage to flood. He said the Council had previously said the kerbside outside his property needed reshaping and he wants the Council to complete that remedial work instead of monitoring the problem further.
2. He said that rainwater was flooding his garage instead of going down the drain in the road.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mr X contacted the Council in 2019 and said his garage flooded when it rained because of water collecting on the road. Following a site visit, the Council emailed Mr X and said the area outside his property needed reshaping. It said it would consider whether to include the work within its minor repairs, but it could not confirm if, or when that work would take place.
7. Mr X contacted the Council further in 2021 asking when it would complete the necessary remedial work. The Council decided to review what might be causing the flooding and asked Mr X whether he had made any alterations to the driveway. The Council also reviewed the original building plans and cleaned the drains.
8. The Council emailed Mr X in October 2021. It said as the problem had only been happening for three years, it needed to identify what had changed to cause the flooding. It said that cleaning the drains would provide a baseline for monitoring the problem. In its complaint to response to him sent in December 2021, it said officers from Highways and Engineering would complete three months of observations during bad weather to assess the problem. Following that, it would decide whether it needed to take remedial action, or if it needed to complete further observations.
9. Although Mr X is unhappy with the Council’s decision to monitor the flooding, the Council is entitled to assess what might be causing the flooding before it decides to complete remedial work. Therefore, there is insufficient evidence of fault to warrant us investigating his complaint about that decision.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to complete remedial work to the road outside his property as there is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman