Medway Council (25 014 055)
Category : Transport and highways > Street furniture and lighting
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 11 Mar 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about flags appearing in public spaces. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault and Mrs Y has not suffered significant injustice.
The complaint
- Mrs Y complains about the large number of flags in her local area which have been placed by residents.
- She says the flags incite racial tension and are a distraction to drivers. Mrs Y says the Council should remove the flags.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs Y and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs Y contacted the Council with her concerns about the large number of flags in her local area.
- The Council did not respond to Mrs Y’s complaint directly. It said this was because the removal of flags was part of a wider project and it was unable to respond to individual requests at the time.
- There is no duty in law on the Council to remove items attached to its street furniture. We could therefore not say if removing them or leaving them in place amounts to fault by the Council.
- Mrs Y is concerned about the flags. However, there is no evidence of her suffering significant injustice to warrant us using time and public money to investigate this further.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision and Mrs Y has not suffered significant injustice to warrant us investigating.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman