Pothole compensation claims DOUBLE in one year, but 76% of councils refused to pay

According to research, compensation claims for potholes have doubled in a year, but most councils reject them.

Worse yet, this could be just the tip of the iceberg.

A freedom of information request by the RAC found that pothole compensation claims made to 18 local authorities with the longest road networks in Britain more than doubled in the 12 months between 2022 and 2023.

Bad news for fed up motorists is that the chances of making a successful pothole compensation claim are slim – 76 per cent of councils rejected more than three quarters of the claims they received last year.

Councils paid only 15 percent of all compensation claims received in 2023.

This comes after the Chancellor’s £500m pledge to plug gaps in the Autumn Budget was criticized as “a drop in the ocean”.

The FOI of 21 councils (of which 18 responded), covering almost 92,200 miles of local roads, found that compensation claims between 2022 and 2023 soared from 8,327 to 20,432.

Despite the huge increase in claims year-on-year, 17 councils paid only 3,131 of the 20,432 claims submitted by drivers in 2023.

The RAC estimates this equates to a total of around £824,000 paid out at an average of just £260 per claim.

This doesn’t help drivers much, as it is about 43 percent less than what drivers can expect to pay.

According to data from the RAC workshop, drivers will have to pay up to around £460 for pothole damage if their car needs to be repaired for something more serious than a puncture.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “These findings are a stark reminder that the current poor state of many of the UK’s local roads is burning holes in the budgets of both local authorities and drivers.” .

How successful is your pothole compensation claim before a council? And which councils are least likely to grant compensation?

Unfortunately, your pothole compensation claim is highly unlikely to be successful.

FOI data shows that only 13 of the 17 councils (76 per cent) that paid drivers any compensation for pothole damage rejected more than three quarters of the claims they received in 2023.

As pothole damage claims increased, the proportion of claims rejected by councils also slowly increased. Between 2021 and 2023, the average number of rejected applications increased five percentage points, from 76 to 81 percent.

And the RAC also found that five councils rejected nine out of ten pothole claims in 2023.

Gloucestershire County Council rejected 98 per cent of their 829 claims; Essex County Council rejected 95 per cent of their 2,560 claims; Kent and Cornwall councils rejected 92 per cent of their respective 1,884 and 407 claims and Powys County Council rejected 90 per cent of their 107 claims.

Surrey rejected the highest total number of pothole compensation claims last year, rejecting 86 per cent (2,954) of the 3,418 claims it received in 2023.

Shropshire Council alone paid out more than 30 per cent of the compensation claims it received, paying out 68 per cent of its 546 claims in 2023.

Why do city councils refuse to pay compensation for potholes?

The RAC also asked councils how many compensation claims they rejected for lack of knowledge of the pothole in question, under section 58(2d) of the Highways Act 1980.

Of the 8,172 compensation claims rejected by the nine councils that responded to the question, an overwhelming majority (74 per cent (6,028)) were rejected for these reasons.

Gloucestershire and Hertfordshire councils stated that every single claim (100 per cent) they rejected was because they did not know a particular pothole existed.

How many complaints were there per mile of road?

Eighteen municipalities provided data on the number of complaints per kilometer of road.

Surrey received the equivalent of one pothole complaint for every mile of its 3,410-mile road network – 3,418 complaints in total in 2023.

Hampshire, Essex and Hertfordshire received one pothole complaint for every two miles of their respective 5,641, 5,188 and 3,110 miles of roads.

Hampshire had 2,654 claims, Essex 2,560 and Hertfordshire received 1,914 in 2023.

Kent and Lincolnshire had claims for every three miles of their 5,822 and 5,559 mile networks, totaling 1,884 and 1,771 respective claims each.

Meanwhile, Gloucestershire had claims for every four miles of its 3,496-mile stretch, with a total of 829 claims last year.

Councils spend so much on legal costs – should they just pay pothole claims?

Last year, 13 of the 18 councils that responded to the FOI paid more than £166,000 in legal fees to defend themselves against pothole claims brought by drivers.

The biggest part was Lincolnshire County Council, which spent almost £96,000 defending itself against some of the 1,771 pothole claims it received in 2023.

Devon County Council was the second biggest spender, although at a much lower rate of £33,232, while Essex County Council spent almost £20,000 (£19,685).

All other authorities spent less than £10,000.

Williams commented: ‘While some councils appeared to prioritize paying legal fees over resolving pothole claims, the cost in time and money of defending claims appears to far outweigh the expense of reimbursing drivers for damage caused to their vehicle first.

“Even if a driver gets compensation, the average sum paid of £260 is usually well below the cost of repairing a car damaged by a pothole, for something more serious than a punctured tyre.”