Pothole damage - any advice please (a bit long, sorry)

[SWnewstart]

On the way home one evening in late December 2019 (6pm'ish) on a stretch of unlit country road, I hit a massive pothole (area around an exposed drain cover). There were no traffic cones, reflective lights, road signs, barriers or anything to indicate a hazard. It was windy with heavy so I was driving carefully at about 35-40 mph. The impact caused damage to the near-side tyre / wheel but I was only a couple of minutes from home so I drove extremely carefully, and didn't see any other traffic.

The next morning the RAC fitted the spare skinny tyre so I could get to a repair shop. I drove the same route and noticed a traffic cone had been placed in the pothole with another one its side nearby. In daylight I also counted 4 wheel trims within a few metres - maybe lost from other vehicles hitting the same pothole? I took photos and - seeing the hole clearly - was surprised the impact hadn't done more damage to my little Fiat 500! A new tyre, tracking and alignment etc came to £91.50.

Given the circumstances, I honestly thought the Council Highways would be responsible and I could claim this money back. However liability has been denied. The pothole was apparently:

"on notice of a potential issue at this location on December 11th 2019 and an inspection carried out and repairs were ordered. The highways department were contacted again and as a result of this, the area was further inspected and repairs were brought forward and completed within the time allowed".

The Council also say the area was "made safe after the incident" and confirmed full repairs were carried out on 7 January 2020. They also state that prior to the incident the pothole was classed as a Category 6 risk and afterwards increased to Category 16.

Despite contacting the Council (email and in writing) politely stating the facts and attaching clear photos, liability is completely denied. It is suggested I use the Small Claims Court. This will obviously incur fees of about half my claimed sum and I don't have a great deal of faith in being successful. It just seems so unfair as if Council Highways are not responsible who is? Unlit road, no warnings at all - impact virtually unavoidable.

Rant over. Feel better for that!

That should read "heavy rain" - teach me not to proof read!

If it makes you feel better, my "pothole bill" was over £300 as I needed a new wheel. I got nowhere with the council. Their excuse was that they couldn't possibly have known about the pothole as it wasn't there last time they looked and no one had told them about it.

Your council have said that they did know about it so I'm not sure how they are trying to wriggle out of liability.

No idea but good luck.
The state of the roads around here we will all need to be claiming off the council.
The amount of pot holes is ridiculous to the point I'm thinking roads should have yearly mots to make sure their pot hole free.

A new wheel and tyre on mine has just cost me £450!

Check the councils guidelines - ours are 28 days to repair a minor pothole after its been reported, 5 days for a major pothole. Unless they have failed to adhere to this, our council will not pay out. The one i went down was classed as minor at the time it was first reported - after a load of rain and a few cars being damaged, it got reclassed as major.

The reason they can say no will be on the grounds of what is a reasonable length of time between them first being notified of the pothole, and when they could get the repair work booked in. Once a few people reported issues then they brought forward the repair as the pothole was hazardous.
If it went to court it would likely be found that they did everything they reasonably could and as such were not negligent.
At least it was only a small repair for you though - small mercies.

It's a crazy situation all round isn't it. Sorry to hear about your repair bill SoupDragon - I'd feel like having a face-to-face conversation with Highways individual at the Council offices and asking how that individual would feel if their car incurred damage! Not that you'd be allowed anywhere near a real person.

I am just amazed to be advised that the risk went from a 6 (classed as Low in the Highways Manual I was kindly sent) to a 16 (High Risk, make safe and repair within 24hrs) immediately after my "incident". Strange coincidence or what?

The whole thing could have been avoided with something as basic as a traffic cone in place and I'm still pissed off. Nobody cares but guess Council funding is needed elsewhere (not being sarcastic, I mean hospitals and education).

DropZoneOne, that's awful for you to incur that amount for something presumably avoidable. So wrong.

This happened to me in January last year, in the dark, country road - thankfully I didn't need a new wheel, but the tyre was knackered. The tyre that only had 8k miles on it . Cost around £70 (but isn't a Continental like the other three - couldn't afford that)

I should have made a claim I guess, but I had other stuff going on in my life and didn't bother.

I'm not sure whether you've seen this, or whether it'll help you get further than you already have:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/pothole-claims/

There are also some discussions about claiming for pothole damage in the motoring forum.

Hope you get somewhere - the state of the roads is shocking.

Could you try threatening them with a freedom of information request in relation to all pothole compensation claims this year. The fear of the faff might see them pay out to avoid!

You need to request the inspection frequency, the date of the last inspection, and their safety inspection policy. The last inspection data should have a report with the size of the pothole on it.

I think this needs to be done under a freedom of information.

Once you have that information you can find out if you have a chance of any claim.

What area are you in?

Thank you all for your comments - judging by your repair bills, maybe I've got off lightly! I will try the FOI route as suggested.

MistyIsland - it's Somerset County Council.

Yep - I had this last winter!

Had to fork out for a new wheel and DH had to come and rescue me from work

My bill was over £100.

So has anybody ever been successful with a claim for damages from their local Council? If so, I'd love to know the magic words!

I had a £250 bill from a pothole. There were five or six cars that all lost a tyre the same morning.

After hours of paperwork and having to go out on a dangerous road to take pictures they requested, I was basically told it was tough, they kept up with their schedule and I’d have to suck it up.

So has anybody ever been successful with a claim for damages from their local Council? If so, I'd love to know the magic words!

Yes but sadly it's not magic words - they're not strictly liable for damages just because there is a pothole, even though it feels someone should be. They are only liable if they knew about the pothole and didn't fix it within the allocated time, and you incurred damage because of their delay - so you're not really claiming that the pothole being there was their fault, but that they were negligent in that they didn't fix it fast enough once they knew about it.

It seems Somerset CC are saying they knew about it but it worsened, it was within the allowable time for fix and they reprioritised it and got it fixed within 24 hours once it was reassessed, so to claim against them, you'd need to prove that some part of this was negligent, usually that they were outside of the allowable fix times.

It is crap, it used to cost a fortune in my old coupe as the tyres were so expensive and oddly wide set so it's usually damage the car, too.

So has anybody ever been successful with a claim for damages from their local Council?

The council are only liable if they knew about it and didn't do anything about it, though. Potholes happen and the council can't know about every single one of them. It's crap you ended up with a repair bill but that's part and parcel of owning a car unfortunately.

As for my experience, I tried claiming but I was told the council hadn't been aware of it up until that point. They did fix within 48h of me reporting it, though - this was South Lakes council.

A pothole so deep you could climb through to Australia has appeared near my house and someone has stuck a traffic cone in it, which I appreciate as someone kept parking right beside it, narrowing the road so it was difficult to swerve.

The local council takes absolutely no care of the roads around here, they are a total disgrace so I wouldn't hold my breath for any admission of liability from any council.

Crazy situation all over the country it seems. Not holding out much hope but have done the FOI request as a last attempt. If I am successful, MN will be the first to hear!