Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about Penalty Charge Notices because part of the complaint is late and there are no good reasons to investigate it now. It was also reasonable to expect her to use her right of appeal to challenge the more recent Penalty Charge Notices.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council has issued multiple Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) for parking across her own driveway and delayed responding to her complaint. She says the Council wrongly rejected her appeals despite evidence she was the resident and has not clearly explained the legal basis for its enforcement approach. Mrs X says she has been complaining about the issue for several years, causing distress and avoidable time and trouble. She wants the Council to acknowledge its failings, review its approach and provide a financial remedy.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court or use a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court or appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(6)(a) and (c), as amended)
5. London Tribunals considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for London, and the Traffic Penalty Tribunal for the rest of England. The Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC), part of the county court, considers applications to set the PCN process back where there has been procedural fault.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information from the complainant and the Council and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. We will not investigate Mrs X's complaint about the Council's long-standing approach to enforcing parking restrictions across dropped kerbs. Mrs X said she has been raising concerns about this issue for several years. We normally expect people to complain to us within 12 months of becoming aware of a matter. The time limit runs from when someone becomes aware of the issue, not when a council completes its complaints procedure. I see no good reason why Mrs X could not have complained to the Ombudsman sooner, so I will not exercise discretion to investigate this part of her complaint.
8. We will not investigate Mrs X's complaint about the more recent PCNs. The law provides a right of appeal against parking enforcement. Where a PCN progresses to the Notice to Owner stage, the recipient may make formal representations to the Council. If the Council rejects those representations, the recipient may appeal to the London Tribunals, a free independent adjudication service. It was reasonable for Mrs X to use that appeal process to challenge any PCN the Council did not cancel and to dispute the Council's interpretation of the parking restrictions.
9. Mrs X complained the Council delayed handling her complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures as a stand-alone issue where we are not investigating the substantive complaint.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint because part of it is late and, for the more recent PCNs, it was reasonable to expect Mrs X to use her right of appeal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman