Pot Home claim

CraigWBaker

Morning all.


Some sage advice please.



Claimed for pot hole damage against Staffordshire Countil Council, back in May, 2018. Finally responded, with a rebuke.


Wording is as follow:


"we must advise youu that our client has in operation a regular system of inspection oh highways in their ares, and the area of your incident beig subject to annual inspections. In accordance with Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980, the site of yur incident was last examined prior to the 17th May 2018 on the 6th December 2017. At that point the defect which led to your accident was not noted. Another defect in the vicinity was recorded and repaired the following day.


As our client has adhered to their system of inspections and mnaintenacne we do not condider they have breached the ststutory duties and must repudiate liability on their behalf"


As I read this, we checked it with 12 month prior to your accident, and we are only legally obliged to do this, therefore no blame on us. Does that sound in any way shape and form right? 12 month?


Thanks

neilmcl

Sounds right to me. Annual inspections are perfectly reasonable, however if they had been notified of the pot hole in the interim and failed to take action then they can be held liable.

sheramber

you can report potholes etc through this site. https://www.fixmystreet.com/

My own council do take action from these reports

CraigWBaker

sheramber wrote: »

you can report potholes etc through this site.

My own council do take action from these reports

Not sure why you posted this...I have already reported it, and they rejected the claim, as I said

CraigWBaker

neilmcl wrote: »

Sounds right to me. Annual inspections are perfectly reasonable, however if they had been notified of the pot hole in the interim and failed to take action then they can be held liable.

What do you think, ask for info on that street? See if hey will give me the details of what has or has not been reported for the 12 months prior to the incident?

neilmcl

CraigWBaker wrote: »

What do you think, ask for info on that street? See if hey will give me the details of what has or has not been reported for the 12 months prior to the incident?

You would probably need to make a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to find out.

https://www.potholes.co.uk/claims/step_by_step_guide

Joe_Horner

CraigWBaker wrote: »

Not sure why you posted this...I have already reported it, and they rejected the claim, as I said

Sheramber wasn't talking about reporting your damage, they were showing a way you can "force" the council to take action more often than once a year. The point is that, once they've been notified that a pothole exists, they have to act or their "12 month inspection" excuse goes out the window if a damage claim happens later.

We all know that council budgets are stretched to breaking point, and expecting them to send crews out to continually inspect the several hundred miles of roads in their area (along with everything else people complain they're not doing) would just mean a huge increase in council tax. So "helping" them by reporting ones you notice makes sense.

It won't help in your case because its already happened, but it might do for someone else next time - just as if someone else had bothered to report the one you hit it WOULD now be helpful to you!


eta: You can also check reports (that have been made through that site) as a first step in seeing if the one you hit had been reported. It won't show ones reported directly to the council, but you never know - someone else might have been bothered...

https://www.fixmystreet.com//reports

jimjames

If you have a pot home then watch out for the police