Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to carry out maintenance to a bridleway which has private vehicle access rights. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council refusing to carry out surface repairs to a lane which serves his property. He says the surface has deteriorated partly due to use by council waste collection vehicles in 2021 and the residents should not pay for this usage.

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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
• 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), as amended, section 34(B))

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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X says damage has been caused to the surface of a lane which he uses to access his property. He says this increased since the Council designated the lane, which was previously a footpath, as a public bridleway in 2012. Since then, service and delivery vehicles have added to the damage which he says should be repaired by the Council as highway authority. We will not investigate his complaint about the change in status of the lane because this was considered by us in an earlier complaint in 2022. The decision which changed the status of the lane was made by a Planning Inspector on behalf of the secretary of state at a planning inquiry in 2012. We have no jurisdiction in such matters.
7. In 2021 Mr X complained to the District Council about its waste collection vehicles causing surface damage. He did not pursue a complaint with our service at the time. The time for receiving complaints is from when someone became aware of the matter they wish to complain about, not when they complained to the Council or it issued its final response. We would expect someone to complain to us within a year, even if they were dissatisfied with the time the complaints procedure was taking.
8. He made a complaint to the County Council highway authority in 2024 and it advised him that it would only maintain the lane to bridleway standard because this is the status of the route on its list of streets and definitive map. The residents enjoy private vehicle rights over the bridleway, as do service vehicles attending properties, but the responsibility for keeping the surface usable for the vehicle access remains with the private users.
9. 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. In this case the Council has explained reasonably why it has no highway duty to maintain the lane surface.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to carry out maintenance to a bridleway which has private vehicle access rights. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman