Reasonable timeframe?

9th June 2010

I damaged my car on a large pothole with replacement/repair costs coming to £300 for which I placed a claim against my local Council.

After waiting weeks for a response they have now written to tell me that for a claim to be successful against the Local Authority it is necessary to show they have either negligent and/or in breach of their statutory duty to maintain the highway. The defect was identified on 15th January and a repair took place on 4th Feb. They feel that this was in a reasonable timeframe taking account of the limited resources and the extent and nature of the defect.

I damaged my vehicle on 3rd February and whilst inspecting the pothole another lady stopped who had damaged her vehicle the night before and now has a bill for £1000 which the council will not accept liability for. We both reported the pot hole on the Monday 4th February and it was fixed that day, if just seems a little suspicious to me.

Replies (3)

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 21/06/10 at 10:05 am

Download 'well maintained highways' from www.roadscodes.org - there are recommended response times in there.

As far as I know there are no recommendations to erect warning signs. Highway authorities can identify hundreds of potholes each day - to erect warning signs for each one would cost millions and result in a ridiculous proliferation of signs

vikki99     posted : 14/06/10 at 1:55 pm

Are there any guidelines for the timeframe to fix potholes? Should they not provide some warning signage in the mean time?

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 10/06/10 at 10:14 am

Many local authorities have been playing 'catch up' after the horrible winter. Under 'normal' circumstances, 2½ weeks to repair a pothole is possibly unreasonable.

Ask for some more information; what other potholes were identified around the same time and how long was it before they were repaired?