The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to carry out improvements to a pedestrian crossing near Miss X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Miss X complained about the Council’s decision to replace a pedestrian crossing near her home with one operating lights and signals with consulting her. She says the new anti-skid surface which was added causes traffic noise and vibration in her home.
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 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))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Miss X says the Council replaced a crossing which previously used a pedestrian refuge with a Toucan type signal operated crossing with lights and warning beepers. She says there was no consultation from the Council and the new crossing was created with anti-skid roughed surface and crossing studs. She says the surface causes additional traffic noise and vibration in her home.
The Council told Miss X that it informed the statutory authorities and local councillors about the improvements but that It did not individually notify residents in this case. This was not a requirement for the scheme for improvement works. When Miss X complained about the noise from the surface the Council commissioned a noise survey from an independent acoustic consultant.
The noise survey concluded that the new surface produced no significant noise or vibration and that the majority of the noise resulted from heavy traffic on the A-road itself. The Council told Miss X it will not be altering the crossing further.
Because there was an existing crossing it is unlikely that any objections miss X could have made would have altered the outcome. The Council as highway authority could have installed the anti-skid surface to the approaches of the existing crossing under its highway powers.
We will not start or continue an investigation once satisfied that it is highly unlikely that we would find fault and/or that the authority’s actions have not caused an injustice which would warrant the public expense of our continued involvement.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to carry out improvements to a pedestrian crossing near Miss X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman