Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council wrongly describing a detour as being on public roads. That did not directly cause Mr X a significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council wrongly claimed for several years that a detour was along public roads, when in fact it involved private roads. He says this causes inconvenience and confusion.

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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 any fault has not caused direct injustice to the person who complained, 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 some copy complaint correspondence from the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X’s home is reached along a lane the Council classes as a bridleway. There is no public right to drive motor vehicles on bridleways. Only pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders have a public legal right to use bridleways. Several years ago, the Council installed barriers to prevent unauthorised vehicles using the bridleway. That prevented Mr X, or anyone else, accessing Mr X’s house this way in motor vehicles. The Council said vehicles could access Mr X’s and neighbouring properties by another route which Council said was on public roads. The Council later said those roads were actually private roads.
6. Mr X says the detour causes delay, confuses visitors including delivery drivers, encourages trespass as there is no general right to use the private roads, the private roads are not necessarily maintained to the necessary standard, and he fears it impedes emergency vehicles. He wants the Council to remove the barriers on the bridleway to allow vehicle access that way. He argues the stretch of lane protected by the barriers is not really a viable bridleway anyway.
7. I must consider whether the Council’s alleged fault - saying the detour was along what transpired to be private roads - directly causes Mr X a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to pursuing the complaint. I note the confusion and inconvenience Mr X describes. However, that comes from comparing driving via the detour with driving along the bridleway. That is not a valid comparison because there is no public right to drive a motor vehicle on the bridleway, therefore there is no reasonable expectation Council should allow that. So the difficulties Mr X describes do not stem directly from the Council incorrectly saying the detour roads were public. Therefore the Council’s action here did not directly cause Mr X a significant enough injustice for the Ombudsman to investigate. If the owners of the private roads on the detour believe the detour causes them any injustice, they can take their own action.
8. The underlying substantive cause of Mr X’s dissatisfaction is the Council not removing the barrier and allowing motor vehicles on the bridleway. The Council has said it will not do that. Mr X complained to us about that several years ago (here is a link to the decision on our website). We did not uphold that complaint. We are not revisiting our previous decision.
9. Nottinghamshire County Council’s role here is only regarding the public right of way on the bridleway. It does not own the land where the bridleway is. The landowner can agree private rights of motor vehicle access across the land, but that does not concern Nottinghamshire County Council.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the Council’s description of the detour did not directly cause Mr X a significant injustice. We have already decided the underlying point, namely the Council restricting vehicular access to the bridleway.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman