Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of road safety matters in Mr X’s village. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the methodology used by the Council to determine any need for amendments to the existing speed restrictions and traffic safety in his village. He says the Council placed too much emphasis on collision data and mean speeds without accepting that a number of vehicles exceeded the speed limit in a given period. He wants the Council to carry out a more representative survey.

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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 says the Council failed to assess all the factors which involved vehicles speeding through his village when it carried out a survey to establish if additional road safety measures were warranted. He says too much emphasis was placed on collision data provided by police records and mean speeds through the area without taking into account a proportion of vehicles breaking the speed limit.
6. The Council provided details of how it assessed the traffic in its respnse to Mr X’s complaint and a freedom of information access request. As highway authority the Council’s assessment decision on the traffic survey is a discretionary matter. It must decide how to use the limited resources available to the highway authority.
7. The Council told Mr X that it took a wider range of factors into account than just the number of vehicles speeding. It did not believe that the site warranted the addition of speed cameras or traffic calming because the road is an unclassified road without the volume of traffic necessary for additional measures.
8. Highway restrictions require a traffic order under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 which is a legal process involving significant time and resources. Councils as highway authorities have a list or orders waiting to be introduced based on priority need and available resources. The Council told Mr X that the road in question does not meet the threshold for additional restrictions required in a traffic order.
9. 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.
10. In this case it was a matter for the Council to decide if traffic improvements were required and there is no fault in its decision in this case.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of road safety matters in Mr X’s village. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman