Pot hole claim Birmingham council not paying

kam1186

Hi guys,

I was driving my vehicle back in March 2018 when i hit a large pot hole and the side of the typre was damaged and the allow was partially sratched.

i sent a claim to Amey that deals with road repairs who denied it. i then requested for the road repair. this came in but to be honest i couldnt understand any of it.

my claim was for the cost of a new tyre, repair cost for alloy damage and cost of car hire, due to my car not having a spare tyre.

Can anyone advise me am i able to still proceed with this. i am not sure what i can do going from here as the report makes no sense to me what so ever. if i can at least recover the cost of the tyre which was around £125 that would be good. as i had just put on a new tyre 3 days prior.

agrinnall

Letter Before Action and Small Claim using Moneyclaim Online.

Tilt

You have to prove negligence on their part by proving that they had previously been aware of the pot hole or carried out the required checks on the road within a timely manner as prescribed in the Highways Act 1980. You can ask the council (via freedom of information request) for a maintenance schedule for the road which should have the dates that the road was checked. If the last date it was checked was more than a month previous to your incident, you should have a case.

Did you take photographs of the offending hole?

AdrianC

There are strict conditions in which the local authority is not liable. Did yours fall into those?

Post the report (anonymised), and we'll help you make sense.

stator

As above, they are only liable for the repair if you knew about the pothole and didn't fix it within the prescribed time limit.


Use a freedom of information request to find out if they knew about the pothole. If they didn't, or it had only been reported recently then you are out of luck

Aylesbury_Duck

You also have a responsibility to mitigate your losses. Was it necessary to hire a car or could you have used public transport for the day? If they are liable, I could see them reimbursing a rail, bus or taxi fare but not the cost of hiring a car.

forgotmyname

Car hire? Would it have been cheaper to buy a spare wheel?

Or for the wheel repair shop to have loaned you a wheel, I know 2 that will either loan you a vehicle or a spare wheel (set of wheels) to use.

debtdebt

If they don't pay out, issue proceedings.

Have a look at the defences available to the local authority under s.58 of the Highways Act.

Crabman

Birmingham (subcontracted to Amey) has a history of ignoring defects and then claiming they weren't aware. They stopped accepting reports from third party websites that have smartphone apps as that was too transparent for them.

Do post the report (blank out details that may identify you) and we can try to help.

SandraX

stator wrote: »

As above, they are only liable for the repair if you knew about the pothole and didn't fix it within the prescribed time limit.


Use a freedom of information request to find out if they knew about the pothole. If they didn't, or it had only been reported recently then you are out of luck

You hit the nail on the head, the prescribed time varies greatly. Years ago our little Ford Ka went through a massive pothole during rain filled with water, burst the tyre, bust the wheel and shock damage - they would not have it as they had 2 weeks to repair. My husband got quote from main dealer it was massive and we had an excess of 250 on the insurance, so hubby got wheel/trye from scrappy, shocks from ebay and did it himself, cost less than 40 quid. But if you have a bigger car costs can be very high

Enjoy your xmas and happy new year to you.

xx

Crabman

SandraX wrote: »

they would not have it as they had 2 weeks to repair.

They have to make it safe in the interim period; they can't just leave a large hole in the road for two weeks.