Bedford Borough Council (24 018 458)
Category : Transport and highways > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 07 Mar 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to remove the yellow lines on his road in 2015. The complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and I see no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider it now.
The complaint
- The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s decision to remove the yellow lines on his road in 2015 and about the impact of this.
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 effect 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 the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council told Mr X it would not consider his complaint about the removal of yellow lines on his road in 2015 via its complaints procedure because it was about a matter that happened well over 12 months ago.
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. It lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late. The law says a complaint should be made to us within 12 months of the person affected first becoming aware of the matter. I see no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider Mr X’s complaint now a decade on from when the yellow lines were removed.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it lies outside our jurisdiction and there are no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider it now.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman