The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to approve Mr X’s application for a vehicle crossing. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complained about the Council refusing his application for a vehicle crossing. He says there are other properties on his street which have approved driveways which equally do not meet the Council’s policy requirements.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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: 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))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X applied for a vehicle crossing but this was rejected by the Council because there was insufficient space in front of his property to accommodate it according to the Council’s policy requirements. He complained to his member of Parliament and the Council reviewed his application but maintained that it did not meet the criteria which are based on highway safety.
Mr X says there are other properties on his street which have approved crossings which have the same dimensions as his own home. The Council says most were approved prior to the current policy being adopted but accepts that two were approved later in 2018 due to an error.
Mr X’s application was assessed correctly under the Council’s policy and its refusal was on the grounds that it did not meet the safety criteria. The 2018 may have been incorrectly assessed based on measurements provided by the owners or the Council’s officers. However, this has no bearing on the decision on Mr X’s complaint. It would be unreasonable to expect the owners to remove their crossings after four years when they were approved at the time.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to approve Mr X’s application for a vehicle crossing. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman