Pothole claim rejected

Ladylou123

Hello, my husband and I recently suffered a burst tyre due to a pothole by the side of the road causing £120 worth of damage.
We reported it to the council and requested compensation and even though they acknowledged there was an issue and even filled the pothole with rubble the following week, the claim was rejected on the following grounds:
The road had a routine maintenance inspection and repair program 6 months before our damage occurred.
No one else reported the same problem.
However this pothole obviously appeared after their routine inspection, they acknowledged there was a pothole and it's possible that no-one else reported it as no-one else had to pull to the side of this narrow road in the dark due to an on-coming tractor in exactly the same spot.
Where do we stand now?

Guest101

if they didnt know about it, they arent liable.

Thats the basics of it.

marlot

You need to be able to show that they have been negligent in order to successfully claim. On the face of it, they seem to be covered.

If you really want to pursue this then you may have to do things like:

• Put in an FOI request to get the most recent inspection to see if the pothole is mentioned
• Try to work out if the frequency of inspections is adequate
• etc

stator

Your only hope is to prove that they knew about it and didn't fix it in a timely manor. You can put in a freedom of information request for reports of potholes from the public and see if any match up. You could speak to people who live on that street and see if any of them reported it. Or you could just move on

ChumpusRex

Ladylou123 wrote: »

Hello, my husband and I recently suffered a burst tyre due to a pothole by the side of the road causing £120 worth of damage.
(snip)
Where do we stand now?

A pothole is no one's fault, therefore there is no liability, except yours for taking the risk of driving.

For the council to be liable, you would have to prove that the council were negligent.

For example, you would have to prove that the council did not have a regular road inspection programme in place; or that the council did detect the pothole at inspection and ignored it, or you would have to prove that the pot hole had been reported to the council and that the council ignored the report.

neilmcl

ChumpusRex wrote: »

A pothole is no one's fault, therefore there is no liability, except yours for taking the risk of driving.

To simplistic, all depends on how the pothole is formed. It could be result of a previous poor repair or in the case of 1 that I've had to claim for as result of roadworks.