Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to Mr X’s concerns about pedestrian safety in the area. This is because further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault in the way the Council made its decision.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to properly consider concerns about pedestrian safety at a road junction near his home. He says the Council relied on collision data to reject his concerns and did not adequately consider the risks at the location. Mr X wants the Council to carry out a risk assessment at the location and introduce measures to make it safer for pedestrians.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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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. The Council considered Mr X’s concerns and explained that no recorded injury collisions had taken place within 200 metres of the location in the last three years. It said it uses collision data and specified criteria to decide where road safety measures are most needed and focuses its limited resources on locations with higher numbers of recorded collisions. For this reason, it did not consider the location a priority for road safety intervention and did not plan to take any further action at that time. However, it said it would keep a record of Mr X’s concerns and take them into account if it develops a road safety scheme in the area in future.
6. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not reconsider a decision simply because someone disagrees with it. Instead, we consider the process an organisation follows when making its decision. Where we find that an organisation followed the correct process, we cannot question the merits of the decision, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the outcome.
7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. Based on the evidence I have seen, the Council followed its road safety prioritisation process, looked at the collision history, and explained why it did not consider the location a priority for action. Further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council.
8. In addition, it is for the Council to decide how it prioritises its resources and which locations meet the criteria for road safety intervention. We cannot require the Council to introduce road safety measures at a particular location even though Mr X disagrees with the decision made.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman