‘Ludicrous’ council forks out £2k fighting motorist’s £190 pothole claim

A council has spent over £2,000 fighting a driver's claim for pothole damage - which was only for £190.

Victoria Broadbent, 44, hit a pothole in the Gloucestershire town of Cirencester in May 2023, blowing out the tyre on her car she shares with her husband, Richard, 54.

The couple put in their compensation claim for the damage to Gloucestershire County Council, which resulted in a 15-month legal battle.

The claim was settled just two days before it was set to go court, but Mr Broadbent wanted to learn how much the legal fees cost the council.

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He submitted a freedom of information request only to discover it cost £2,139 - over ten times the value of the original claim.

Initially, the authority turned down the request for compensation, citing Section 58 of the Highways Act as a defence.

The council argued it is not responsible for damage caused by a pothole if it can prove it regularly maintained and inspected the road, and was unaware it needed to be repaired.

Mrs Broadbent, however, was able to prove the council was aware of the pothole and had not done anything to repair it.

A history report showed another drive had hit the hole three weeks before she did, and had already marked the indent for repair.

But that driver also had her claim denied, and was told her photos did not match.

Mr Broadbent spent the next 15 months working to appeal the initial decision by the council.

Much time was spent on calls with the council's lawyers and a meeting was held with a judge and council lawyer.

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Liberal Democrat-run Gloucestershire County Council offered a settlement two days before the small claims court hearing, offering to pay the full invoice for the repair and court costs - but did not admit any liability for the damage.

Mr Broadbent told The Times: "For the council to spend so much time and money contesting this was appalling.

"The idea that this is an organisation committed to public service is frankly ludicrous, given its aggressive and dismissive approach to assessing a legitimate, comprehensively evidenced damages claim by a member of the public.

"The level of determination it showed to maintain a hopeless defence almost to the bitter end does go a long way to explaining how it has managed to consistently pay a lower percentage of claims than almost any other local authority."

Potholes has increasingly been a scourge for drivers throughout Britain, but only 24 per cent of claims result in some form of payout.

Gloucestershire County Council has faced 2,539 claims in the past five years - but only paid out compensation in 3.15 per cent of cases.

Scott Williams from the RAC said Section 58 had been commonly used to avoid paying compensation fees, adding that the cost of defending potholes often far outweighed the expense of reimbursing drivers.

And Scott Dixon, who runs the Complaints Resolver website, said: "Local authorities fight tooth and nail to defend all claims to send out a message that 'you take us on at your peril'.

"There is a bottomless pit of money to deny, delay and deflect claims, yet there's never enough money to maintain the roads, fix the potholes properly and clean gullies to allow surface water to drain off the roads."

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