Highway admits failures but rejects my claim

27th November 2011

I had a burst tyre and tried to claim against my local authority. They rejected on the basis that they were not aware of the pothole at the time of the incident. After following your advice I submitted further evidence. The authority still refuse to pay a settlement figure, however they have admitted to: not being able to assess the road because they have repaired it before a claims assess went to site and also claimed I had not submitted photographs, which I did, therefore stating no defect found even though they admitted they had repaired it. They admitted faults were logged however because these were passed to the wrong department, they were not liable as they could not get to the damaged road in time. They admitted they had not assessed the original claim because incorrect details were sent for assessment by their own departments. They acknowledge several issues with the road were reported before hand, but under there assessment, these related to another part of the road and not the area I was claiming against and that this can not be substationated because full details of the location were never logged by their agents. They admit that routine inspections were not carried out at the exact intervals but were carried out at other times and claim no defects found. The admit this was during the harsh winter last year and acknowledge the winter service guidelines for authorities was available, but this is advice and not a set of rules. They admit they were busy and could not handle the calls at the time that were coming in so could not assess situations properly and finally they state that no member of the public should expect all lengths of highways can be in a reasonable standard at all times therefore no claim is liable. It seems that even thought they state many factors, there last word is final no matter what the case is. Where I can I go next?

Replies (1)

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 29/11/11 at 9:46 am

That depends entirely on how strongly you feel about fighting them and how confident you feel about taking the matter to Court. If you can not negotiate any kind of settlement, ultimately you will end up letting a Court decide and some people are simply not willing to go to Court.

If you feel that you want to fight on, it might be worth one last letter, checked by a friend, which clearly lays out all of the failures you consider contributed to your losses. If you are willing to take the matter to Court, tell them so and advise them that you are more than happy to bring the failings to the Court's attention, and let it decide whether or not they are acceptable circumstances.

Good luck.