Potholes in the News as £168 Million Released to Fund Repairs

As a motorist, potholes are one heck of a pain for me. They’re everywhere! I can’t seem to escape them wherever I drive. Whether I’m dodging them on the city streets or on the A38, I’m often worried about the damage that can be caused to my vehicle as I’ve hit one before and it cost me hundreds to repair the damage to the wheel and the tyre.

News reports today from the BBC confirm that £168m has been funded to local councils who applied for finances to help fix our roads by March 2015.

The reports confirm that extra money has been given to ‘model councils’ and the money is a welcome relief to authorities who have been saying for years that more funding is needed to fix potholes and prevent them on our roads. The reports suggest it costs around £53 per pothole to fix them, which is a fraction of the cost they’d need to compensate someone for an accident. You’d think they’d get this sorted out – so hopefully this new funding will help sort out the growing pothole epidemic on our roads!

We take on a lot of pothole claims for personal injury compensation, but the majority of them will lose because of the way the law works. The Highways Act 1980 gives councils and local authorities a special defence based on whether they can prove they have a reasonable system of inspection or not. There could be a massive pothole that they could easily defend a claim for; even if the damage writes off your car, costing you thousands of pounds!

A lot of reparation jobs I see seem to be temporary cover ups and they quickly break open again. This doesn’t solve the problem, but the aim of this additional funding seems to be intended to sort that out – despite that fact that reports suggest much more is needed.