Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to install parking regulations on a residential road. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s rejection of his request for parking restrictions on the residential road where he lives. He says inconsiderate parking by residents and visitors restricts the width of the road making access for emergency vehicles difficult and causing obstruction and traffic hazards.

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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. Mr X asked the Council to provide parking restrictions in the form of double yellow lines to deter inconsiderate parking on his street. He says there are safety implications from parked vehicle restricting the width of the highway in emergencies and restricting visibility which could cause traffic hazards and access obstruction.
6. The Council told Mr X that it did not believe the issues he reported warranted the introduction of parking restrictions which require a traffic regulation order. There are limited resources to create traffic orders and these have to be determined by how serious a highway problem may be. It does not consider Mr X’s concerns meet the threshold for formal restrictions and they can be resolved by other methods such as advisory H-bar markings and parking enforcement where access is obstructed.
7. The decision on which schemes to include in traffic orders is a discretionary process and the Council as highway authority must decide which schemes merit its limited resources.
8. 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.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to install parking regulations on a residential road. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman