Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council not giving Mrs X a residents’ parking permit at her building. Part of the complaint is late, without good enough reason to investigate now. On the more recent events, we would be unlikely to find fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that errors in the way the Council administered its residents’ parking scheme from September 2022 mean she did not receive a parking permit to park at her own building in January 2025. Mrs X says the distance to the alternative space the Council gave her causes her inconvenience because of her mobility problems.

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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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We received Mrs X’s complaint in October 2025, so the restriction in paragraph 3 above applies to events before October 2024. I can see no good reason why Mrs X could not have complained to us sooner if she believed the Council’s administration of its residents’ parking scheme dating back several years was flawed. I will therefore not consider events before October 2024.
7. Regarding events since October 2024, the Council did not allocate Mrs X a space until it received an application from her in January 2025. For part of that time, no residents had allocated parking spaces at Mrs X’s building and Mrs X was generally able to park there. Not having an allocated space did not cause significant enough injustice to Mrs X to warrant us investigating events during that time.
8. Mrs X now has an allocated space which is not at her building. Whilst we recognise Mrs X is experiencing health issues as a result of having to park further away, it is unlikely any investigation by us would find the Council at fault for not allocating Mrs X a parking space at her building. This is because the Council says in November 2024 it notified all residents, by letters hand-delivered to each property and notices put up on the estate, they needed to reapply for parking permits. Mrs X says she did not receive that letter. It is unlikely any investigation by us would find evidence the Council did not send Mrs X a letter or put up notices. It is also unlikely we would find the Council at fault for not chasing Mrs X when it did not receive an application from her in November 2024. Mrs X did receive a letter from the Council in January 2025 encouraging residents without a parking space to reapply. This demonstrates the Council’s efforts to make sure all residents who might want a parking permit were aware of that requirement. It is unlikely any investigation would find that Mrs X’s not being able to park at her own building since January 2025 resulted directly from any fault by the Council.
9. Mrs X also argues the Council should have issued parking permits based on applications she and others made earlier in 2024. Instead, the Council decided not to progress those applications and to ask everyone to apply again in November 2024, this time online. This decision in itself did not significantly advantage or disadvantage any particular resident, so we will not investigate it.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate the late part of Mrs X’s complaint because we consider it reasonable for her to have complained to us sooner. We will not investigate the Council’s failure to issue Mrs X with a parking permit for her building in early 2025 because we would be unlikely to find fault in the Council’s actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman