Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a request for changes to parking restrictions within the Council’s controlled parking zone. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s refusal to provide double yellow line parking restrictions near her home to prevent her driveway from being obstructed at certain times of day. She says the Council’s provision of single line limited parking does not prevent her access from being restricted outside the parking times.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X says the Council failed to provide double yellow lines near her home as she requested. She says that her access was restricted by an existing parking bay opposite and single line parking restrictions further down the road. The Council removed the bay at her request but only extended existing single line waiting restrictions. As a result, she says that her drive access is obstructed by cars parking close to it outside the restricted times.
6. The Council told her that it would not provide double yellow line unlimited restrictions because the area is a controlled parking zone with permit parking and is subject to a traffic management order which enforces the scheme. It also says that the obstruction of Miss X’s driveway is not related to the single line restrictions but is caused by inconsiderate parking. Parking obstruction is outside the Council’s parking enforcement powers and is enforced by the Police who may issue fixed penalty notices for such offences.
7. The Council is the highway authority and it has the final say where changes are made to parking introduced in legal traffic orders. In this case the Council did carry out some alterations to the parking provision but it did not consider that the situation warranted changing the traffic order for permanent parking restrictions.
8. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about a request for changes to parking restrictions within the Council’s controlled parking zone. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman