Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to prevent illegal street parking near Mr X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which has caused any significant personal injustice to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to take sufficient action over parking on restricted lines by customers of a nearby restaurant. He says cars cause disturbance and block dropped kerbs without any action being taken against the owners of the premises.

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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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

(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 has not taken sufficient action against the owners of a nearby restaurant premises over parking on double yellow lines by its customers and other visitors. He complained about the matter to the Council in 2026.
6. The Council says that it has examined the businesses’ licensing conditions and there is limited action it can take over parking by customers. The Council has increased parking enforcement patrols to enforce the restrictions but it has a duty to spread its enforcement resources over the whole of its area.
7. We will not investigate this complaint. The onus is on motorists to park within the traffic regulations for an area. Neither the Council nor the business owners can prevent unlawful parking breaches and the Council cannot police a specific area all of the time given its duty to provide an equal service throughout its area.
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 failure to prevent illegal street parking near Mr X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which has caused any significant personal injustice to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman