Councils spend more than £2m on pothole compensation

Councils across the East of England have forked out more than £2m settling claims for pothole damage on vehicles over the past five years, according to research by the BBC.

Essex, which has nearly 5,000 miles (8,046km) of roads, had the highest number of claims (8,658) followed by Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

Our Freedom of Information Request revealed that across the East of England there have been 37,000 claims for compensation since 2021.

The revelation comes as the issue of potholes features heavily in this year's local election campaign, with politicians and industry experts calling for more to be spent on tackling the problem.

Costa Nicolaou, from Nazeing, is one of those who successfully made a claim. He received £3,500 from Essex County Council "after a long battle of nearly two years".

Two wheels were "buckled and cracked", and needed replacing, and two tyres were punctured after his car hit a pothole that formed around a drain a mile from his home.

It cost just over £4,000 to fix his high-end Maserati, he said.

"I wasn't having it. I'm not paying for this. In the end I got a solicitor involved. He really dug his heels in," said Nicolaou.

He described the process as "near-on impossible without legal representation".

Rob Webber, of Witham, Essex, is in the process of claiming for £300 damage after he said he hit a pothole on the way back from work.

"I was coming back from work and in the darkness hit a pothole on my front left tyre and it buckled my alloy and I had a massive bulge on the side of my tyre," he said.

"Generally across all of Essex the roads are really poor."

Essex County Council has paid out £500,000 over the past five years in compensation.

A spokesperson said: "All compensation claims are investigated fully, and damages are paid if the council is liable."

Garages report that they have seen an increase in the number of motorists needing pothole repairs to their vehicles.

In Southend, Rapid Wheels mechanic Mark Rosson, who has worked for the firm for 20 years, said: "Progressively I'm getting more and more pothole damage to wheels.

"We used to do a couple of wheels a month. It was 3 to 5% of our business.

"Now we get 20 to 25 wheels a week."

There are 31,000 outstanding potholes that have been reported in Essex as of March, according to a BBC FOI request.

In Sturmer, close to the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire border, the main A-road that runs through the village is riddled with surface damage.

Someone has taped "Pothole City" to the Sturmer road sign.

Cars come to a crawl and some swerve to the other side of the road to avoid going over some of the potholes.

Pippa Francis, 29, from Sturmer, said the road through the village was "really, really bad".

She added: "It's been like it for so long. It's horrific. It's awful."

Overnight works resurfacing the A1017 through Sturmer are set to start from Monday.

Conservative-run Essex County Council has increased its funding for road maintenance over the past five years.

The Labour government has also provided councils across the East with a £72m injection for pothole repairs.

Essex County Council spent £64m last year on road repairs and resurfacing, up from £48m from 2020-21. More than 12,000 carriageway defects were fixed in the past 12 months, it said.

The Conservative Party, which runs Essex County Council, said the authority secured record investment for Essex roads.

The Liberal Democrats proposed increasing council tax by an extra 1% and putting £10m into road repairs.

Labour called for an independent inspector to stop poor repair work.

The Green Party has said Essex County Council "is good at inspecting and monitoring, but less good at actually fixing".

Nigel Farage MP said Reform UK would take fixing potholes "very seriously" and use technology to make more permanent repairs.

The road industry body, the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), said councils in the Eastern region have a large gap in the money they need to repair all the road defects they have.

"Each local authority is telling us they would have needed an additional £140m each and that is just to maintain the status quo, " said Ian Lancaster from the AIA.

"Nationally to wrap everything up will cost us £18.6bn."

BBC Politics East will be broadcast on Sunday 19 April at 10:00 GMT on BBC One in the East of England, and will be available after broadcast on BBC iPlayer.

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