Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a delay in replacing two street lighting columns. There is insufficient evidence of fault causing an issue of significant public interest to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s delay in replacing two street lighting columns in her street. She says she was inconvenienced by lack of illumination for several months until the lights were replaced.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with 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))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says she complained to the Council in July about two street lights being removed and not replaced in her street. It took until November for the Council to replace the columns and a further month before the lights were connected to the mains. She says the loss of the lights caused inconvenience for hr and other residents.
6. The Council told her that it had to remove the lights because the columns were dangerous. It could not immediately replace them because of a national shortage of columns due to supply shortages in the COVID-19 pandemic. When it received the materials, it told Mrs X and local councillors that it had prioritised this location above 400 other sites where columns had to be removed for safety reasons.
7. Councils as highway authorities have a duty to ensure that users of the public highway are safe from risk by defective street furniture. This is why the columns were removed when they were found to be decayed and dangerous. There is no statutory duty for councils to provide street lighting. This is a discretionary power and there was no obligation on the Council to replace the removed columns. However, it is clear that it intended to do this as soon as resources allowed and Mrs X’s street was given priority because of elderly residents.
8. We will not start an investigation if we are satisfied that: it is highly unlikely that we would find fault or that the authority’s actions have not caused an injustice of significant public interest. In this case the Council has explained why there was a delay in replacing the lighting and there was no duty to replace the columns within a specific timescale.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about a delay in replacing two street lighting columns. There is insufficient evidence of fault causing an issue of significant public interest to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman