Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s requirement that the applicant for a vehicle crossing should pay for the re-siting of a street lighting column outside their home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council asking her to pay over £2,000 to relocate a street lighting column which is required for her to widen her driveway and vehicle crossing. She says the Council should bear the cost of moving the infrastructure.

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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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(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 the complainant and the Council’s response.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X says the council is unreasonably charging her to re-site a street lighting column when it has no written policy to do so.
6. When a householder requests a vehicle crossing over the footway into the carriageway the Council as highway authority has discretion to approve or refuse the application. If there is existing infrastructure in the footway or verge which restricts the access the authority may refuse the application.
7. Some authorities refuse any application where this exists, infrastructure includes trees, telegraph poles, signs or lighting columns. The Council has agreed that the lighting column may be re-sited at Miss X’s own expense. This is normal practice, a vehicle crossing requires payment for the licence and the dropped kerb because it is a private entry to private property, not a public access. Consequently, adjacent householders are required to pay for their private access, not the public.
8. The highway authority is not responsible for moving infrastructure, some will do this at a charge or they will advise that the applicant pays the utility company for permission in the case of communications equipment.
9. There is no requirement for a written policy on relocating infrastructure. This is part of the highway authority’s powers available under the provisions of the Highways Act 1980 which gives it discretion to decide what is placed within the highway and what must be removed or relocated. There is no appeal against decisions made under these powers.
10. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
11. There is no evidence of fault in the Council’s exercise of its discretionary powers.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s requirement that the applicant for a vehicle crossing should pay for the re-siting of a street lighting column outside their home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman