Well surrey council came back and said they wont pay as they've met their obligations. Pathetic.
Basically they've met their obligations. They checked end april and no pothole was there. It was first reported on 11th june.
Their response.
The liability for the damage to vehicles caused by defects on the highway is governed by the Highways Act 1980. In addition to the duty which is placed on Highway Authorities to maintain the highway, the Highways Act also has a provision under section 58 which states that where a defect arises, provided that there is a proper highway inspection and maintenance regime in operation for the road in question, the Council will not be considered negligent or in breach of its statutory duty. Therefore unless it can be shown that the Council was negligent or in breach of its statutory duties, it will not be liable to pay any damages for the costs of repairing a vehicle.
Please be advised that the Chertsey Road is subject to a monthly driven safety inspection regime in accordance with its Highway Safety Inspections Policy. These inspections are always undertaken by an experienced highways inspector. The previous inspection prior to the date of your incident was undertaken on 23rd May 2019. During this inspection, no defects were found at the location where your incident occurred, or along Chertsey Road generally.
The first notification we received about this specific defect was on 11th June 2019. As stipulated in our maintenance policy, safety defects reported by the public will be reviewed within 5 working days and then actioned where necessary in accordance with Surrey County Council’s defect severity matrix timescales. Upon inspection of this particular defect on 17th June 2019, it was assigned a repair to be completed within 5 working days of the inspection. Therefore this time period had not expired at the time of your accident. This defect was then duly repaired on 20th June 2019.
With the above in mind, I regret that I cannot make an of offer compensation in this matter as you have requested. Whilst I sympathise with the inconvenience that the damage to the vehicle has caused you, it is the Council’s position that it has undertaken all action reasonably necessary to fulfil its statutory obligations and that the damage caused to the vehicle was not as a result of any negligence of the Council. Liability for this claim is therefore denied, and the Council seeks to rely upon the statutory defence afforded to it under section 58 of the Highways Act 1980.
I do appreciate that this is not the response that you would like; however, I do hope that you will understand that the Council cannot meet claims made in these circumstances.
If you would like to see a copy of the documents relating to the street history, you are entitled to ask and these will be sent to you.
My response.
So it's my fault then. I always find people in public organisations are of a certain sort, arrogant, inconsiderate, never wrong and always on their terms.
From the outset they had no intention to pay. Maybe I should use the same theme when paying my taxes etc.
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