Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council allowing two businesses to open near her property without enough parking, and its decision not to implement a residents-only parking scheme in her road. The complaints about the planning application processes for the businesses are late and there are no good reasons for us to investigate them now. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s parking permit scheme decision to warrant us investigating. There is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to Mrs X from the permit scheme issues to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in a residential area near a road with various shops and businesses. She complains the Council:
1. allowed two businesses to open at the end of the road on which she lives without enough allocated parking spaces;
2. has wrongly decided there is insufficient support for a residents-only parking scheme to proceed with it.
2. Mrs X says traffic generated by the businesses is causing nuisance to residents, having detrimental effects on health and wellbeing. She says if residents go out they have hardly any chance of parking in their street again. Mrs X says she and others have had to resort to renting garages some streets away at considerable cost. Mrs X wants the Council to give the street a residents‑only parking permit scheme like other local roads.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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)
4. We 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 or continue an investigation if we decide:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mrs X, relevant online planning documents, maps and images, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The core of Mrs X’s complaint is that the Council did not make sure there was enough parking for users of the two businesses when they granted them planning permission. Mrs X’s main claimed injustices stem from the parking and traffic related to the premises. But both businesses received their permissions many years ago. Mrs X was living at her current property at the time the largest business with most customers got its permission, and when it got a further permission to expand. Mrs X could have complained to us much sooner about these planning matters and what she considers to be a lack of parking provision. There are no good reasons for us to investigate the Council’s planning decisions now. Given the time which has passed since they were made, it is unlikely we would be able to effectively investigate and make findings, so we will not do so.
7. The other part of Mrs X’s complaint is about the processes involved in getting a residents-only parking scheme in place for her road. The Council requires a scheme to be supported by 50 percent of a road’s residents before it can be considered further. Mrs X surveyed the road’s residents in 2024 and received an over 50 percent support rate. She considers the Council should accept this as evidence of sufficient support for the scheme. But councils are required to do their own surveys. It is not fault for a council to not base its decision on a test of resident support conducted by those residents.
8. A local Councillor did a further survey of residents’ support. The Councillor says the level of support did not meet the 50 percent required, which Mrs X disputes. In any event, the Council has confirmed it currently does not have the resources to introduce the parking scheme. It is for councils to make decisions on where they should best focus their resources on such schemes, where they assess which locations within their whole area have the greatest need for one. So even if Mrs X’s position on the Councillor’s survey is correct, this has not led to her and others not receiving a permit scheme. There is not enough significant personal injustice to Mrs X stemming from this issue to warrant us investigating.
9. In its responses to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council says it will not implement the parking permit scheme because it does not have resources for it. This indicates the only impediment to the scheme going ahead is this resourcing issue. But officers also say the scheme did not meet the required level of support from residents to be considered. We recognise this unclear communication may have raised Mrs X’s expectations about the likelihood of it introducing the parking permit scheme. The Council should have been clearer. But the raised expectations or uncertainty this may have caused do not amount to sufficient significant injustice to Mrs X to justify us investigating.
10. In any event, the outcomes of the past surveys of views on the residents-only parking permit scheme are not relevant to whether such a scheme has enough support to go ahead. If the Council considers introducing a scheme in future, the decision whether to proceed will not rely on previous survey results. It will depend on there being sufficient support at such time the Council is reconsidering the scheme. This will require a fresh survey of residents’ views, to which Mrs X and her neighbours could contribute.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• complaints about the planning application processes for the businesses are late and there are no good reasons for us to investigate them now; and
• there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s parking scheme decision to warrant us investigating; and
• there is insufficient significant personal injustice to Mrs X from the parking permit issues to warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman