Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to install a new bus stop near his home. This is because the injustice he claims is not significant enough to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s decision to position a bus stop across the road from his home. He says the bus stop is barely used and results in up to 170 bus movements past his house per day, when previously there were none. He says this results in pollution and noise for him and his wife.

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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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
5. While I appreciate Mr X is concerned about the bus movements and their impact in terms of noise and pollution, Mr X’s property sits on the single access point of a housing estate comprising hundreds of homes and at least two large businesses. It is therefore likely to experience a large number of vehicle movements each day. In this context the claimed 170 bus movements per day, which amounts to 85 in each direction, is not significant.
6. Mr X mentions that buses are often forced to stop at traffic lights outside his property to join a main road but this situation is no different for any vehicles coming from the housing estate and the businesses, which is likely to include heavy goods vehicles, delivery vans and the like.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we could not say the Council’s decision caused Mr X significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman