An Edinburgh resident has challenged Edinburgh City Council to explain to him how his £45 damages claim was not paid out after sharing pictures of the road in question.
Back in April the North Edinburgh resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, had damaged their car by bursting a tyre on a pothole on Muirhouse Green.
They had raised the issue with the council and requested that they pay the £45 for the burst tyre due to their inability to properly care for the roads.
But the council was unable to settle the claim until a hired legal service dealt with the query.
This led to four months of uncertainty for the vehicle owner and when a response came it was not the news they were looking for.
Instead the legal firm stated that the road had been fixed a day prior to the incident taking place. And in their correspondence they say that the road is checked regularly by inspectors but that a maintenance job had been missed between 2019 and 2020.
They said: “The duty imposed on the Council is one of reasonable care. To comply with this the Council operates a system of inspections to identify defects. If any defects are noted as safety defects these are passed to the appropriate department for repair.
“The Council picked up the defect on their inspection of the 6.4.21 and this was marked for repair within 2 to 5 days, the area was repaired on the 8.4.21
“Please be advised that any defects identified by an inspector as part of their daily inspection route would be logged in a report and submitted to the repair department at the end of that day, and on completion of the inspector’s routes for that day.
“The repair department would then prioritise the repair as appropriate. It is accepted by the Courts that Local Authorities have limited budgets and resources and that they have to operate an assessment system to prioritise maintenance work throughout their jurisdiction, to allow the department to make best use of its limited funds.
“We would therefore advise that we do not believe that the Council would not be held liable as they have a reasonable system of inspection and repair in which they adhere to. Whilst we sympathise we are unable to offer compensation. If you remain unhappy with this decision you may wish to consider seeking independent legal advice.”
But the Edinburgh resident was unhappy with the response and had replied to say that they would be seeking legal action but that they were frustrated that they had to dip into their own pocket to do so.
On the issue, they said: “The legal company had a proper attitude when dealing with me and I completely disagree with their findings.
“I will be writing to councillors to chase this up and to ask for answers. It is simply not good enough that a council tax payer has been treated in this way when the road surface is clearly not suitable.
“You have to imagine that it cost the council more to dispute the claim than to have just paid it out in the first place. You can see the state of the road from the pictures I had taken.”
A Council spokesperson said: “While it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases, each claim is assessed by our claims handlers on its own merits, in association with the applicable law. The claims handling agents confirm whether the Council is legally liable to offer compensation or has fulfilled its legal obligations in terms of roads maintenance.
“The law recognises that the highway network cannot remain in perfect condition at all times and that defects will arise.”
