Help!

by MrsMop 30 Jun 2011 Drove into a huge pothole in January causing £300 worth of damage to my car. I obtained the FOI information suggested on this site BEFORE I made my claim. The report states that the pothole was reported at 1.05pm that day, I drove into it at 5.30pm on way home from work - pouring with rain and dark, etc. I am expecting to hear from the councils claim handlers shortly, however, my case seems to have been delayed. I'm am the only person as far as I know that applied for the FOI before they claimed. Other people I have kept in touch with have already received a letter saying that they are refusing the claim as the council weren't negligent, I even gave one victim of the pothole a copy of the report stating the pothole was reported that day but the council are saying it would be unreasonable to expect them to react straight away. The pothole was even coned off until the next day. I can prove they knew about the pothole via the FOI but is this enough to make a claim in the small claims court if they still deny responsibility? Thanks

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Comments (1)

Potholes.co.uk Expert    posted : 01/07/11 at 10.20am

I would be very surprised if a Court found that the local authority should have repaired this pothole sooner then they did and award you compensation. 24 hours has been the standard for as long as I can remember. If you want to take a gamble, the national code of good practice 'suggests' that potholes should be made safe immediately if possible, but accepts that this is unlikely to the normal situation. The Code states: Category 1 defects should be corrected or made safe at the time of the inspection, if reasonably practicable. In this context, making safe may constitute displaying warning notices, coning off or fencing off to protect the public from the defect. If it is not possible to correct or make safe the defect at the time of inspection, which will generally be the case, repairs of a permanent or temporary nature should be carried out as soon as possible, and in any case within a period of 24 hours. In case you are wondering, the general definition of reasonably practicable is that the risk does not outweigh the time, cost, effort and resources that would be needed.

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