Help with pothole appeal to council please

Baldytyke88

eschaton said:

That would probably just be classed as a dimple in the road, not a pot hole. 

I set off for my regular work route in my VW Crafter, its parked on the grass verge and when it when from the curb onto the road, I heard a knock. I was going very slow.

I took it to our workshop, I suspect a broken spring. Its now in a queue, waiting to be inspected. I have parked in that location for years.

Vehicles go over all sorts of bumps, that pothole does look small, perhaps it's a low profile trye compared to my heavy duty van tyre? 

Mildly_Miffed

avgjoe said:

I'd probably need to FOI to get more information, but the hole when I hit it was very large. The hole if I chose the right pothole on that road from their tracker was reported 19.12.25 and 'noted for future reference'. I hit it 12.1.26 

So what do you need to get from an FOI request?

You know when it was logged.
What class of road are we talking about? Going by that verge edge, I'd guess B at *most*, probably C or unclassified.

Less than a month, over Xmas and NY, when repairs are much harder because of weather conditions and many local authorities repurpose their pothole repair wagon chassis to gritters with a body-swap...

MyRealNameToo

facade said:

The last one of these threads that I read (was it on here or reddit?) the OP had been sent the inspection schedule and  the reporting log, which showed that the hole had been reported the previous day (or earlier that day, I forget) along with the legal position - not liable.

As long as there is proof that the last inspection prior to the hole's appearance was within the Council's own schedule, that the schedule is reasonable, and that there hadn't been sufficient time between the first report and the vehicle damage for them to effect a repair (according to their timescales- a 2' deep hole in a major NSL route gets fixed before a 2" deep one on a side street) then they are not liable.

Small claims'ing them will fail as they have a robust defence to the claim and will only cost you more money in fees.

No requirement for the schedule to be reasonable, just has to be compliant with their processes. It's very much a case of marking own homework. 

Just being inspected however isnt enough, it can be shown it had been reported before then again you have to look at the rest of their policy. Most will have a method to grade a pothole based on the road, speed limit, position in the road etc. Based on that there will be a time limit for fixing... a significant pothole in the middle of an A road maybe only a couple of days, a small pothole at the verge of an unclassified road could be months or simply whenever they are next there doing something more major. 

Again, doesnt have to be reasonable but they need to be compliant with their rules so if an FOI shows it should have been repaired in a week and 2 weeks later its hit and it hadn't been then they would be liable. However if they have a record of fixing it 3 days after and it's failed again then again no liability.