Pothole claim

[therestiredandthentheresevenmoretired]

I'll try to be concise:

went over pothole, £800 damage to car, did all the right things (photos etc), sent claim to council.

a legal trainee with 2 months experience (I checked) denied the claim on the basis the council 'followed the Highways law'

the council then told me to FOI data/info (freedom of information requests) which I did. in those documents, I saw that the pothole has been filled/failed/filled/failed since 2013. I also saw that there was a missing log for a specific date (which the litigation dept at the council had relied on in their decision). there were some other unusual statements made by the litigation team at the council

I looked into who the litigation team were (not personally but organisationally) and discovered they are a separate legal org who are shared out between different councils to 'save costs on legal matters' (they also use completely outside counsel too)---billed by the hour.

the time that the council have already put in to sending out FOI data/documents and responding to my queries is more than the cost of the claim

I also have autism and the right/wrong of this situation is stressful. the claims made by the council appear empty. protocol on responses and protocol on them following the Highways law appears to have been breached

I sent them a 'Letter Before Action', mentioned ADR (dispute resolution. ie 'why not just settle this claim in some way, before costs to the council mount into the thousands??!?' it just seems... crazy to me that the council would be fighting something that's patently (and evidentiary) falling on my side, not their side

so now? I have to lodge a small claim

does anyone have similar experience of having followed through with a small claim for pothole damage?? or have any thoughts about anything relating to the above?

I can't afford to just lose £800

the pothole is within x metres of a school too, and one of the FOI logs said that dangerous potholes near schools (it is massive, with years worth of damage reported to cars, to bikes, to motorbikes!!) should be dealt with within 5 days, but this 5 day thing isn't the crux of my argument-it IS however an important point that near a school?? potholes can be deadly.. :( The person reporting it near the school said that traffic was having to weave between ONCOMING traffic, to avoid it.