Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council has failed to enforce parking regulations on the complainant’s road. The Council has taken appropriate action in response to the concerns raised, and an investigation is unlikely to achieve anything further for the complainant.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has failed to enforce parking regulations on his road, and has given misleading and contradictory explanations of its enforcement activity. Mr X says this disrupted his daily life, created safety risks and increased his anxiety.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We 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. So, we do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation, or
• we are satisfied with the actions a Council has taken or proposes to take.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6) & (7), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council, which included their complaint correspondence and information about the Council’s parking enforcement activity over the last 6 months.
4. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. I appreciate Mr X is unhappy about the parking problems on his road and thinks the Council should do more to address the issue.
6. But our role is not to ask whether an organisation could have done things better, or to tell it how to operate its services. It is for the Council to decide where best to focus its limited resources. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in the way it has carried out its functions or reached a decision.
7. I am satisfied the Council has taken appropriate action in response to Mr X’s concerns about parking problems, and an investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to achieve much more for him. In reaching this view, I am mindful that:
• The Council set Mr X’s road as a ‘hotspot’ in early-2025, with an increase in patrols thereafter. This has resulted in 6 penalty charge notices being issued in the last 6 months.
• The Council has explained that enforcement officers must witness a double‑yellow line parking contravention in order to issue a penalty charge notice (PCN), and can only issue one PCN for the same contravention within a 24-hour period. It cannot use CCTV or Mr X’s evidence.
• Due to the large area the Council covers, and given it has finite resources, it is not always possible for an enforcement officer to visit when a parking contravention is reported.
• The Council has apologised for providing incorrect information about whether an enforcement officer attended on 22 February, and has acknowledged a degree of misunderstanding in communications later that same day.
• The Council has also reminded its enforcement officers to log visits to hotspot locations.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the Council has taken appropriate action in response to the concerns he raised, and we are unlikely to achieve much more for him.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman