You can make a suggestion, compliment or complaint through our online contact form:
Make a suggestion, compliment or complaint
If you would like to address your comments to the relevant senior member of staff, please mark your comments for their attention when you complete the form. Visit senior officers of Elmbridge Borough Council for a list of names and responsibilities of our corporate management board and heads of service.
Making a complaint
In the first instance, please complete the make a suggestion, compliment or complaint form so we can resolve your issue informally. This is the quickest way to get your issue resolved.
Please note, we will not treat the following as a complaint:
- a request for a service or for information (for example, reporting noisy neighbours)
- reporting a fault
- offering a comment about a service
- requests for information or an explanation of council policy or practice
- matters for which there is a right of appeal (either within the council or to an independent tribunal) or a right to take legal action
- disagreement with legislation rather than concern over possible bad practice.(e.g. parking penalty charge notices)
- reporting a missed bin
- comment on a planning application
A positive approach to handling complaints is a central part of our customer service standards, we care about the people of our borough and want to listen to your feedback and suggestions for improving our services.
Our complaints system procedure aims to:
- provide a straightforward way for customers to complain to us
- make sure we have a procedure in place to investigate complaints effectively
- keep you informed about the progress of your complaint as well as the eventual outcome
- put the problem right if we believe your complaint is well founded
- make sure that we take action to prevent the problem happening again
- give feedback to the management board and elected members so we can take account of what sorts of complaints we receive and how often we receive them when we need to make decisions on what our resources are best used and spent on
Stage 1 complaint
If you are not satisfied with the way we have dealt with your service issues and you want to make a formal complaint, you can make a Stage 1 complaint using our online form:
Complaint form
Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days of receipt.
A full response will be sent to you within 10 working days. If this is not possible, we will email you to let you know when you can expect to receive a detailed reply.
Stage 2 complaint (appeal)
If you do not feel the complaint was satisfactorily investigated at Stage 1, you can escalate this to Stage 2. Please do this by responding to the stage 1 response. It is important that you respond within 28 days of the Stage 1 response. If you do not do this it may invalidate your appeal.
Your appeal will then be passed onto the relevant Head of Service to review.
Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days of receipt and a response will be provided within 10 working days.
Stage 3 - Local Government Ombudsman
If after these stages a complaint is still unresolved, the usual practice would be to take up the matter with the Local Government Ombudsman.
Further help
If you would like help at any stage in making your complaint the Citizens' Advice Bureau may also be able to help.
If you do not have access to complete the online complaint form you can call us or write to us at:
Elmbridge Borough Council
Civic Centre
High Street
Esher, Surrey
KT10 9SD
Complaints about councillors
If you have a complaint about an elected or co-opted Member of Elmbridge Borough Council or Claygate Parish Council regarding a Code of Conduct matter, please contact the council’s monitoring officer by emailing: MonitoringOfficer@elmbridge.gov.uk in the first instance.
