Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about his parking permits. Any injustice he experienced was not significant enough to warrant an investigation and we could not add to the Council’s previous investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has changed its rules around the number of resident and visitor parking permits it allocates to households, leading to a reduction in how many permits he is entitled to.
2. Mr X says this has led him to being at risk of social isolation. He also says it is an infringement of his right to a family life as it is harder for his family to visit him.
3. He wants the Council to increase the number of permits he receives.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

(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 provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council’s policy for permits where Mr X lives is as follows:
• All households are entitled to 1 resident permit which must be linked to a specific vehicle;
• All households are entitled to 1 visitor permit which does not need to be linked to a specific vehicle.
• The Council also runs a lottery type scheme two weeks after the start of the renewal year. Households can apply for a second permit and if there is any spare capacity, the Council will issue them one.
• All permits cost £30 each.
8. Mr X complained in August 2024 when he only received 1 resident permit and 1 visitor permit. He said that in the past he had always had 2 visitor permits.
9. The Council’s stage 1 and 2 complaint responses confirmed Mr X had received an additional permit for the years 2021/22 and 2022/23. The Council accepted he had also applied for, and received, an additional permit for 2023/24 but its system had not recorded this properly. Because the Council could not be certain whether Mr X had applied for an additional permit for 2024/25, it issued him one and updated its records so they were correct. It warned Mr X he would have to apply as normal for an additional permit for the following year. It also confirmed these rules had always been the same.
10. We will not investigate this complaint. Mr X has received an additional permit for the years 2021 – 2024. The Council admitted errors with its recording system and so it issued him with an additional permit for 2024/25 around the same time he would have received an additional permit if he had applied for one in the usual manner. The Council, therefore, put right any potential injustice Mr X might have experienced. Further investigation would be unlikely to achieve anything more.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has not experienced any significant injustice and further investigation would be unlikely to achieve anything more.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman