The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs J’s complaint about the Council’s decision to install a shared cycle path in a local park. We have seen no evidence of fault in the Council’s actions.
The complaint
The complainant, I shall call Mrs J, complains the Council decided to install a shared cycle path in a local park without consulting members of the public. She is believes the scheme will be dangerous for pedestrians.
Mrs J wants the Council to cancel the cycle path and apologise to park users. She also says it should make a public announcement that all pedestrian routes, including parks and pavements, will be protected from all vehicles except disabled mobility ones.
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 we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) We cannot question whether an organisation’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs J and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
A public consultation was took place on the introduction of a shared pedestrian/cycle path in the park close to Mrs J’s home in 2015. Further discussions took place at the Council’s Lead Member for Transport and Environment meetings in 2017, 2018 and 2022. The Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport and the Environment decided to go ahead with the scheme at the meeting in March 2022. This complies with the arrangements for decision making set out in the Council’s Constitution.
The Ombudsman has no power to stop the Council from proceeding with the cycle path. Nor can we require the Council announce a ban on all vehicles (apart from mobility scooters) from all footpaths as Mrs J would like.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs J’s complaint. We have seen no evidence of fault in the way the Council decided to proceed with the cycle/footpath. And we cannot achieve the outcome Mrs J is seeking.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman