Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about street numbering on the complainant’s road. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, is unhappy about the street number the Council has allocated to an outbuilding on his road, and that when he complained to the Council it said his own properties were incorrectly numbered.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman can 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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr B and the Council. This included their complaint correspondence, information from Mr B about how the alleged faults affect him, and clarification from the Council about how it had allocated the numbers to Mr B’s properties and the outbuilding.
5. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr B owned an existing dwelling which I shall call Property 9. He obtained planning permission to extend Property 9 to create a new dwelling. In 2013, he submitted a street numbering application (SNA) to the Council. The application form included details of the planning permission for the extension/development and said the suggested address was Property 9A. The fee paid was for one new building name/number. Mr B’s application was accompanied by a location plan, which was annotated to show the new dwelling as Property 9 and the original dwelling as Property 9A.
7. The Council assigned Property 9A to the new dwelling, but Mr B says he has used Property 9 for the new dwelling and Property 9A for the original dwelling ever since 2013.
8. In 2022, the Council allocated the number Property 9B to an outbuilding erected in a garden next to Mr B’s new dwelling. The outbuilding belonged to a property on a different road, but it fronted onto and was accessed from Mr B’s road.
9. Mr B contacted the Council as he felt the number allocated to the outbuilding caused confusion for deliveries/emergency services, and he had hoped to be able to use the Property 9B address in the future.
10. The Council explained that it had allocated Property 9A to Mr B’s new dwelling and that his original dwelling should have remained as Property 9. It said Mr B had wrongly swapped the numbers around, which meant he could be liable to enforcement action. It also explained the outbuilding was numbered Property 9B because it was the next available number in the street from which the outbuilding is accessed.
11. I appreciate Mr B is unhappy the Council has told him he has been using the wrong numbers for his properties, and that the Property 9B address has been allocated to his neighbour’s outbuilding. But there is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council has handled these street numbering issues to justify the Ombudsman pursuing the complaint further.
12. In reaching this view, I am mindful that Mr B’s SNA form provided details relating to the new build dwelling/extension, suggested this be numbered Property 9A, and the application fee he paid was only for one new building number. The form did not reference the re-addressing of the original dwelling. Furthermore, the assigning order sent to Mr B describes the development/extension and says Property 9A has been allocated to those works. Whilst I acknowledge the content of the plan Mr B submitted with his SNA, the Council has explained the purpose of the plan is to provide locational and/or access arrangement information to assist in its assessment of these applications; but it does not form part of the formal assigning order/decision.
13. And with regard to the neighbour’s outbuilding, it was ultimately for the Council to decide what street number to assign to that property. We are not an appeal body and it is not for us to tell a council what street or house numbering system to use. I have seen no evidence of administrative fault in the way the Council reached its decision to number the outbuilding as Property 9B, so I cannot question this judgement.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman