Comments, compliments and complaints
Make a formal complaint
Before making a complaint you should make sure that you have given us an opportunity to resolve the issue you are raising.
You should contact the relevant service area at the council first who may be able to resolve the problem quickly.
If the service are not able to resolve the issues you can make a formal complaint.
The complaints process looks at how we have delivered services or reached decisions. Requests for help with problems in your local area should be sent to the correct council service area first.
1. Contact us about an issue
You can contact the service directly to:
- report a missed bin collection
- give feedback on our waste or street cleaning crews
- challenge a parking fine
- appeal a Council Tax bill or decision
- report a problem on a road or pavement
- report anti-social behaviour
- comment on or object to a planning application
- report a planning breach
- claim for damages
- appeal a school admissions decision
View other ways to make a report or submit a request to us.
Request an update
When you report or request something, we will give you an idea of how long it will take us to respond. If we take longer than the stated time, you can contact the service to ask for an update.
2. Make a complaint
If you've already reported the issue and it has not been resolved or you are still dissatisfied, you can make a formal complaint.
There are separate complaints procedures for:
The following complaint form is for all other services.
- Complaints and Feedback Policy
- Privacy statement on complaints
- Policy on dealing with abusive, persistent or vexatious complaints and complainants
- Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure 2021 to 2022
- Customer service standards
- Compliments and Complaints Annual Report 2020 to 2021
- Compliments and Complaints Annual Report 2021 to 2022
- Compliments and Complaints Annual Report 2022 to 2023
- Compliments and Complaints Annual Report 2023 to 2024
- Compliments and Complaints Annual Report 2024 to 2025
- Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman annual data
3. What happens next
We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days.
We aim to respond to your complaint within 10 working days and no later than 20 working days (unless there is a good reason). We will communicate any delay to you along with the reason for the delay.
We’ll also let you know if we cannot deal with your complaint under our Complaints and Feedback Policy.
Escalating your complaint
If you're unhappy with our response, you can ask for a review of your complaint.
We will acknowledge your request within 5 working days and aim to respond within 20 working days of acknowledging your complaint. If we need more time than this, we will explain why.
If you're still unhappy after both stages of our complaints process you can ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to consider your complaint.