Summary: The Ombudsman has discontinued his investigation into Mr C’s complaint about matters relating to traffic calming measures on his estate. This is because of the various jurisdictional reasons explained in this statement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr C, complains about how the Council has dealt with matters relating to traffic calming measures on the estate he lives. Mr C says the measures are inadequate and put the safety of residents at risk. Mr C says:
• The Council failed to follow planning policy when it approved road design plans in 2013.
• The Council failed to ensure that the road design plans were implemented in accordance with the approved plans and the Council’s design statement
• The Council has given inaccurate answers to public questions raised by Councillors about the implementation of the road design plans.
• The Council failed to respond to his requests for information about these matters and has failed to respond to his Freedom of Information Requests (FOI).
• In responding to a complaint, the Council unfairly threatened to invoke its vexatious persons policy.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. The Information Commissioner's Office considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
5. We can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered information provided by Mr C in relation to his complaint and have reviewed and considered the Council’s responses to Mr C’s complaint.
7. I have also sent a draft version of this decision to both parties and invited their comments.

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What I found

Background

8. In 2013 a developer submitted plans to build a number of dwellings. The plans were approved, and Mr C moved into one of the dwellings in 2015.
9. In 2018, Mr C complained to the Ombudsman about the location of a lamppost on the development and that the developers had been allowed to change the road surfaces on his estate. The Ombudsman found no fault in how the Council had considered these matters.

Planning application

10. Mr C complains that the Council failed to follow policy when it approved plans for the development.
11. I will not investigate this matter because it is late. The plans were approved in 2013 and I am satisfied that Mr C has had sight of these plans, because he has previously complained about how they were implemented. I therefore do not consider there to be any reason why he could not have raised this matter sooner.

Road design plans

12. In 2018, the developer completed the final road surfacing on the development.
13. Mr C complains that the Council failed to ensure the developer implemented the road layout in accordance with the approved plans, because it painted the road instead of using raised brickwork.
14. Mr C says the road layout has also not been implemented in accordance with the Council’s design specification, published in 2000. Mr C says he was unaware of the existence of the plan until 2020, which is why he did not previously raise it.
15. The Ombudsman has already investigated a complaint that the Council allowed the developer to change the road surfaces on Mr C’s estate. Mr C will have had the opportunity to provide any supporting evidence in support of his complaint at the time, and the design statement has been publicly available since 2000. For this reason, I will not investigate this matter further.
16. Mr C says the Council has given an inaccurate answer to a public question about this, but I do not consider this justifies further investigation by the Ombudsman, as I do not consider this caused Mr C an injustice.

Requests for information and FoI requests

17. Mr C says the Council failed to respond to his requests for information and that its responses to his Freedom of Information requests have not been responded to.
18. Mr C says he has submitted a number of requests for information to the Council without receiving a response. He says he has also submitted Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to the Council, but the responses have been unsatisfactory.
19. I will not investigate this element of Mr C’s complaint. It is clear Mr C is aware of the process of requesting formally through the FoI process. If he is dissatisfied with the response, he received he can then complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). The ICO is better suited to deal with these complaints.

Vexatious person

20. Mr C says the Council unfairly threated to threated to treat Mr C as a vexatious complainant after he contacted the Council about a noisy manhole cover.
21. In its response to Mr C’s complaint about this, the Council said that it had not implemented it vexatious persons policy. Because Mr C has not be subject to the restrictions imposed by such a policy, I do not consider that he has suffered an injustice. I therefore do not consider it appropriate to investigate this element of his complaint further.

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Final decision

22. I have discontinued my investigation into Mr C’s complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman