Decision report 201104633

Summary

Mr C raised his concern about the council's handling of a consultation exercise carried out as part of the statutory process to introduce priority parking in an area of the city. Mr C was dissatisfied that the council started the formal process without carrying out informal consultation. In addition, Mr C was felt it was unreasonable that the council had not explained in advance the basis on which the decision on priority parking would be made following the formal consultation exercise.

During our investigation the council explained that it would have been preferable to have carried out informal consultation. However, in this case they had decided to proceed to the formal consultation which effectively served the same purpose and would allow the views of residents to be taken into account. As we did not find that anything had gone wrong in reaching this decision, which was one they were entitled to take, we could not challenge it.

We found no evidence that the council were required to explain the basis upon which a decision would be made, in advance of the formal consultation. In this case, the council had explained why the findings of any consultation exercise could not be determined in advance. We found no evidence that the council had acted unreasonably in this case.