Decision Report 201508681

Summary

Ms C complained about the standard of street cleaning in her area, particularly in the autumn when leaves are blocking drains and causing flooding. She said that despite her reporting problems with blocked drains and leaf litter many times via the council's online reporting system, and despite the council's agreement that they would carry out a deep clean of the street and add the street to their list for priority leaf removal in the autumn, the council failed to take reasonable steps to effectively clear the street.

The council acknowledged to us their failures to effectively clear Ms C's street when requested to do so and the evidence we considered supported this. As a result, we upheld the complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to Ms C, if they have not already done so, for failing to clean her street in line with their responsibilities.
• Arrange for a full street clean to be carried out in Ms C's street, if they have not already done so.
• Add Ms C to their list as a priority for leaf removal during the autumn due to the risk of flooding.

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• Staff should be aware of their duty to record and action requests for street cleaning, in line with their responsibilities.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.