Pothole compensation claims DOUBLE in a yr however 76% of councils refused to pay out

Pothole compensation claims have doubled in a year, research has found – but most councils reject them.

Even worse, this could just be the tip of the iceberg.

A Freedom of Information request submitted by the RAC has 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.

In bad news for fed-up motorists, the chances of making a successful claim for pothole compensation are slim – 76 per cent of councils refused more than three-quarters of claims they received last year.

Councils paid out just 15 per cent of all compensation claims received in 2023. 

This comes after the Chancellor’s £500million pledged to potholes in the Autumn Budget was slammed as ‘a drop in the ocean’.

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

Despite the huge rise in year-on-year claims, 17 councils paid out just 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 do much to help drivers, as it is around 43 per cent less than the amount drivers can expect to pay.

According to RAC garage data, drivers will have to pay up to around £460 for pothole damage – if their car needs to be fixed for anything more serious than a puncture.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: ‘These findings are a stark reminder that the ongoing poor condition 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 to a council likely to be? And which councils are least likely to award compensation?

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely your pothole compensation claim will be successful.

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

As pothole damage claims have increased, the proportion of claims refused by councils has risen slowly too. Between 2021 to 2023, the average number of claims refused has risen by five percentage points, from 76 to 81 per cent.

And the RAC also discovered that five councils refused nine-in-10 pothole claims in 2023.

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

Surrey refused the total greatest number of pothole compensation claims last year, turning down 86 per cent (2,954) of the 3,418 claims it received in 2023.

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

Why are councils refusing to pay pothole compensation claims?

The RAC also asked councils how many compensation claims they refused due to not being aware of the pothole in question, under Section 58 2d of the Highways Act 1980.

Of the 8,172 compensation claims refused by the nine councils that answered the question, an overwhelming majority – 74 per cent (6,028) – were refused on these grounds.

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

How many claims were there per mile of road?

Eighteen councils provided data for the number of claims per mile of road.

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

Hampshire, Essex and Hertfordshire all received a pothole claim 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, with a total of 1,884 and 1,771 respective claims each.

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

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

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

The majority of this was Lincolnshire County Council which spent nearly £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 fee 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 prioritise paying legal fees over settling pothole claims, the cost in time and money of defending claims appears to far outweigh the expense of reimbursing drivers for the damage done to their vehicle in the first place. 

‘Even if a driver successfully pursued compensation, the average sum paid out of £260 is often well below the cost to fix a pothole-damaged car, for anything more serious than a punctured tyre’.