Council Pays Out Thousands In Pothole Compensation
In total, between 2000 and 2017, the authority had to find £661,999.38 in compensation with an average payout of £302.67.
The highest single pay out was in 2012 when one claimant received £13,714. The lowest compensation amount was just £8 in 2006.
A spokeswoman for the council stated that more is being spent to fix potholes than ever before, aiming to invest £6 million between April this year and March 2019 – three times as much as in 2017.
Meanwhile, the authority is spending another £25 million on road improvements.
She said: “We’ve made improving the county’s roads a top priority.
“We’ve hired nine extra gangs of road workers to support our 12 regular teams to fix potholes and carry out other road repairs such as patching.
“When we receive a claim for compensation we carry out a number of checks, including making sure the invoice details match the vehicle on the claim form and that the location is on a road maintained by the council. All claims are subject to robust and detailed investigations.”
According to the county council, it received 6,058 claims between 2000 and 2017 with more than a third receiving payouts (2,353).
The year in which the most claims were made was 2015 with 935 claims, the lowest was 113 in 2005.
Meanwhile, there were two years in which more than half of all claims filed received payouts, with 58.7 per cent in 2015 and 54.4 per cent in 2001.
In 2017 there were 243 claims, 86 of which received payouts totalling £16,969.89.
The highest amount paid out was £1,470, and the lowest was £10.98 – the average was £197.32.
By Eddie Bisknell
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