“I’m absolutely gutted and disappointed”: Council refuses to pay compensation to Derbyshire driver whose tyre ‘exploded’ after hitting pothole

Jack Stubbings, of Morton, was travelling along Newton Road in Tibshelf on January 17, when he hit a pothole.

A tyre on his Audi “exploded”, leaving Jack forced to pay almost £300 in repairs to his car.

After the incident, Jack contacted Derbyshire County Council to claim compensation for the damages.

But he was surprised to find out that the authority had made a decision to reject his claim.

The decision notice explains that the section of the road where the incident happened is a subject to a monthly inspection schedule.

Despite the pothole being significant in size, the council claims that during the inspection carried out on December 16, ‘no defects meeting the criteria for repair were identified’.

The authority further added that while it was ‘unfortunate’ that Jack’s vehicle was damaged, they did not consider that the County Council could be held liable in this instance.

Jack said: “I’m absolutely gutted and disappointed that they aren’t accepting responsibility for an issue that’s financially affected so many other local drivers.

“There was another post on Facebook about the pot hole and loads of local people were saying that they suffered financially like me at the hands of the poorly governed roads, especially at the same spot as me.

"It’s shocking they even tried to get out of paying and said there was no defects to the road! Are they blind?!”

Jack shared his frustrations on a local Facebook group and many motorists shared similar experiences.

Sally Renshaw said: “Ironically I reported that very pothole on that exact date. I reported six on my district councillor email.”

Lee Smith added: “15th of January I reported it. It’s so hard to report as there about five or six holes in that area now. It needs a complete re-surface.”

Natalie Wardle commented: “Makes me laugh that our cars are required to be ‘road worthy’ however the roads aren’t car worthy!”

Derbyshire Times contacted the County Council regarding the Newton Road pothole and the authority further confirmed that no ‘actionable defects were present’ on the road.

The council explained that they were not required to pay compensation if they did all that was ‘reasonably practicable’ to ensure the road was safe.

Derbyshire County Council Cabinet Member for potholes, highways and transport Councillor Charlotte Hill said: “The reason we were unable to pay compensation on this occasion is due to the fact we have done all that was reasonably practicable in the circumstances.

“We have a system in place to ensure we inspect our roads and this particular location is inspected monthly. We determine the timescale to place on the frequency of inspections based on many factors, for example road type and usage frequency.

“In this location the monthly inspection was conducted on time, prior to the incident, and no actionable defects were present. We had not received any reports to notify us of a defect since the routine inspection and prior to Mr Stubbings incident.

“We are only liable for defects where they are known to us and we have failed to take action, and unfortunately the roads cannot be kept in a perfect state of repair at all times, nor is this the expectation in law.

“As soon as we were made aware of this particular pothole we took fast and reactive action. The incident happened on 17 January and we received the report. A highways team attended on 19 January and completed repairs on the same day, which is well ahead of the time scheduled for the repair.

“We have, therefore, done all that was reasonably practicable in the circumstances, having repaired the defect once we became aware of it.”