Pothole claims guide discussion

tazgalsinh

My car occurred damaged due to a large pothole in the car park of a retail park. What is the process for this situation? Do I still approach the council or the land owner?

I’ve had the car repaired (new spring, mount and other bits were required). Thanks 

Cell

A bit late, I'm afraid, but the landowner or managing agent. There is often a sign somewhere on site giving contact details.

Take photographs and measurements if you haven't already.

jcj1203

Hi all,

New to the forum but just wanted to give a bit of a success story in relation to this advice article to give others hope - took over 6 months but following the article’s advice and using its templates, the council concerned have now agreed to compensate me.

I suffered damage to my car (full single tyre blowout) in mid-May of this year due to a pothole. It was hidden just after a pool of water but was extremely deep and I actually felt lucky just to escape with a blowout. The pothole was so dangerous that it was repaired same day once the highway steward actually came and assessed it. This particular council area in England is renown for the poor quality of its road surface and family members who live there speak of many drivers they know that have horror stories from using this council’s roads. I tried calling multiple times to report the pothole to the council in the first instance and was hung up on multiple times. Other occasions the council claimed to be aware of it but refused to provide a reference number. This council outsources its road maintenance to a large, well known civil engineering company, which also handles its claims and customer service functions, and they seem to have a centralised contact centre located quite far away from the actual council area, where the staff don’t appear to care about the quality of the service provided.

I sent in my initial claim (fast claim) in mid-May, using the templates provided by MSE on this forum (however I had to copy and paste them in to the council’s form), which was acknowledged by the council nearly a week later who provided a 90 day maximum timeline to respond to the claim. I did not hear anything until day 90, when, after I followed up with them by email to inform them it was day 90, the claim was rejected using the Section 58 defence claiming that the council had done all it could by law to prevent the damage to my vehicle.

I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of this claim. Luckily, however, the council actually alluded to the fact that they hadn’t conducted the inspections required by their own guidance (the date between the damage occurring and the date they provided for the last visual inspection was nearly 45 days, when it should only have been 30 +/- 3 days), so I thought I would be worth going an FOI to pull the records properly.

I put the FOI request in (once again using the templates provided here) and got given the records (after a polite nudge to the council’s FOI team, who were nearly 2 weeks late in delivering it). Hurrah - there was a massive discrepancy between when the road should’ve been inspected vs when it actually was. Furthermore, the records showed that the council often had not been responding to dangerous potholes in the timeframes that they should have, sometimes taking days to repair “emergency” damage to the road surface that they themselves classed as requiring repair within 2 hours.

With this ammunition, and the templates given by MSE, I composed a 3 page masterpiece outlining my claim (a full claim), using their records and comparing it to the national strategy and their own highway repair standards to put forward a case that their alleged negligence was responsible for the damage. I included all of the FOI information and evidence from the original claim in the email as evidence.

After 30 days waiting to hear back about the full claim, the council have agreed to compensate me for the cost of the new tyre. Am completely over the moon and it feels great to be rewarded for perseverance. After all, a single pothole that causes a full tyre blowout is unlikely to have formed overnight, and we pay tax in this country for the local authorities to keep our roads in good shape. They should be held to account when they fail to do so, at the detriment (and potential danger) of their constituents.

Biggest advice - persevere! The system is arranged to make this process as difficult and mind-numbing as possible so that you give up at the first hurdle. Don’t! Keep trying until you get the compensation you deserve.

KylieR88

Updated pothole claims guide is great. I tried to get money back from the council after hitting a large pothole. I requested the inspection reports and it showed that the road had been inspected regularly. It was either yearly or 6 months and due to this they refused to pay me for damage as they didnt know about the pothole. Would be useful to know hoe regularly they should be inspecting the roads. My understanding is that this is a grey area. 

ericthered1

jcj1203 said:

Hi all,

New to the forum but just wanted to give a bit of a success story in relation to this advice article to give others hope - took over 6 months but following the article’s advice and using its templates, the council concerned have now agreed to compensate me.

I suffered damage to my car (full single tyre blowout) in mid-May of this year due to a pothole. It was hidden just after a pool of water but was extremely deep and I actually felt lucky just to escape with a blowout. The pothole was so dangerous that it was repaired same day once the highway steward actually came and assessed it. This particular council area in England is renown for the poor quality of its road surface and family members who live there speak of many drivers they know that have horror stories from using this council’s roads. I tried calling multiple times to report the pothole to the council in the first instance and was hung up on multiple times. Other occasions the council claimed to be aware of it but refused to provide a reference number. This council outsources its road maintenance to a large, well known civil engineering company, which also handles its claims and customer service functions, and they seem to have a centralised contact centre located quite far away from the actual council area, where the staff don’t appear to care about the quality of the service provided.

I sent in my initial claim (fast claim) in mid-May, using the templates provided by MSE on this forum (however I had to copy and paste them in to the council’s form), which was acknowledged by the council nearly a week later who provided a 90 day maximum timeline to respond to the claim. I did not hear anything until day 90, when, after I followed up with them by email to inform them it was day 90, the claim was rejected using the Section 58 defence claiming that the council had done all it could by law to prevent the damage to my vehicle.

I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of this claim. Luckily, however, the council actually alluded to the fact that they hadn’t conducted the inspections required by their own guidance (the date between the damage occurring and the date they provided for the last visual inspection was nearly 45 days, when it should only have been 30 +/- 3 days), so I thought I would be worth going an FOI to pull the records properly.

I put the FOI request in (once again using the templates provided here) and got given the records (after a polite nudge to the council’s FOI team, who were nearly 2 weeks late in delivering it). Hurrah - there was a massive discrepancy between when the road should’ve been inspected vs when it actually was. Furthermore, the records showed that the council often had not been responding to dangerous potholes in the timeframes that they should have, sometimes taking days to repair “emergency” damage to the road surface that they themselves classed as requiring repair within 2 hours.

With this ammunition, and the templates given by MSE, I composed a 3 page masterpiece outlining my claim (a full claim), using their records and comparing it to the national strategy and their own highway repair standards to put forward a case that their alleged negligence was responsible for the damage. I included all of the FOI information and evidence from the original claim in the email as evidence.

After 30 days waiting to hear back about the full claim, the council have agreed to compensate me for the cost of the new tyre. Am completely over the moon and it feels great to be rewarded for perseverance. After all, a single pothole that causes a full tyre blowout is unlikely to have formed overnight, and we pay tax in this country for the local authorities to keep our roads in good shape. They should be held to account when they fail to do so, at the detriment (and potential danger) of their constituents.

Biggest advice - persevere! The system is arranged to make this process as difficult and mind-numbing as possible so that you give up at the first hurdle. Don’t! Keep trying until you get the compensation you deserve.

Hi 

jcj1203, I also got as far as you did and now at the stage that I am considering claims from 2 councils regarding 2 blow outs. Both responded with the usual "we inspect our roads every 28 days as per Highways maintenance schedule blah blah blah" and both times following my unfortunate incident, they repaired the road the day after I logged it with the council.  

My worry is that they will say the pothole appeared within inspections, so how can I prove that but also how can they prove that? I guess then it is time for me to submit a small claims and see what happens.

Did you provide any exceptional evidence to support your claim?

ericthered1

KylieR88 said:

Updated pothole claims guide is great. I tried to get money back from the council after hitting a large pothole. I requested the inspection reports and it showed that the road had been inspected regularly. It was either yearly or 6 months and due to this they refused to pay me for damage as they didnt know about the pothole. Would be useful to know hoe regularly they should be inspecting the roads. My understanding is that this is a grey area. 

I think the statutory requirement is 28 days.

Cell

KylieR88 said:

Updated pothole claims guide is great. I tried to get money back from the council after hitting a large pothole. I requested the inspection reports and it showed that the road had been inspected regularly. It was either yearly or 6 months and due to this they refused to pay me for damage as they didnt know about the pothole. Would be useful to know hoe regularly they should be inspecting the roads. My understanding is that this is a grey area. 

When I last worked in the industry (three or so years ago) the regulations moved towards a risk based principle of inspection. There are no statutory requirements specifically. Each local authority will have a code of practice on its website readily accessible. With a little bit of working out you should be able to see whether they complied with their own risk assessment.

If they have the only course of action is to attack the assessment itself, but a layman will struggle. It would really need a lawyer.

Cell

ericthered1 said:

KylieR88 said:

Updated pothole claims guide is great. I tried to get money back from the council after hitting a large pothole. I requested the inspection reports and it showed that the road had been inspected regularly. It was either yearly or 6 months and due to this they refused to pay me for damage as they didnt know about the pothole. Would be useful to know hoe regularly they should be inspecting the roads. My understanding is that this is a grey area. 

I think the statutory requirement is 28 days.

As in my previous post there is no such thing. And only fairly major routes would merit a 28 day inspection cycle. Some rural roads can happily deal with an annual inspection regime, while city centre high traffic areas might need to be done weekly or fortnightly. You'd have to look at each authority's code of practice to judge.

Cell

For example:

https://www.leeds.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-travel/road-improvement-schemes/highways-infrastructure-asset-management-plan

Graeme1978uk

Just had a successful pothole claim with Lancashire County Council. Hit a deep pothole in December and submitted a claim in January. Followed all of the guidance given on the MSE website for a fast claim. The basis for my claim was...

6th December - Pothole reported by a member of the public
7th December - Pothole assessed and measured by Lancashire County Council as being 9cm deep and scheduled for repair.
10th December - I hit the pothole bursting the front nearside tyre and damaging the rear nearside tyre.
11th December - I returned to the site and measured the pothole at 18cm deep and took photographs.

The depth measurement I think was key to my claim, because LCC's own policy stated that potholes in excess of 10cm deep will be repaired within 48 hours, so had it been measured correctly it would have been repaired prior to me hitting it on 10th December. I also noted from the response to my FOI that the road in that location had been repaired 3 times in the previous month, so I also suggested that the road repairs had not been to a satisfcatory standard, but it was the depth that backed my claim up in my opinion.

I'd claimed £357 for two tyres, and they've offered £300 in settlement based on the age of the tyres and I think that's reasonable. All in all a fairly quick and easy process if you're prepared to gather the correct information.