London Borough of Barnet (24 006 974)
Category : Transport and highways > Highway repair and maintenance
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 17 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council responded to her complaint about repairing a highway defect. Any injustice to Mrs X is not significant enough to justify an investigation.
The complaint
- Mrs X was unhappy with the Council’s response to a repair to a road surface defect outside her home. She said the Council delayed taking adequate action, despite a commitment to carry out a repair, following her complaints. Mrs X said because of this she experiences excessive road noise and is worried about damage to her home. Mrs X wants the Council to carry out a repair.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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:
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
- we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- In December 2023, and then again in April 2024, Mrs X reported a large defect on the roadway outside her home. She said she was dissatisfied because she had reported a defect at the same location previously, and after her report in December, the Council agreed to repair the defect. Mrs X then complained to us because the Council had delayed adequately completing the repair.
- The Council replied to Mrs X and gave an explanation why it was not able to fully resolve the repair because of matters outside its control. We will not investigate this matter further, because any injustice Mrs X has had, is not significant enough to warrant an investigation. In any case, Mrs X wants the Council to resurface the road and we could not direct the Council to do this work.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is no significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman