1. How much money overall has been paid out by Devon County Council in connection with compensation claims (whether or not liability was accepted) relating to potholes involving a/ cyclists and b/ motorists in each of the last five years?
The Devon County Council claims system does not differentiate between claims made by motorcyclists and cyclists – they all fall under the same category.
Therefore to provide this information we would need to undertake a manual search of the archived files to obtain this information. As these files total in excess of 3,000 and a review of each file would take approximately 10 minutes, it would take at least 500 hours to obtain this information. This is in excess of the appropriate limit of 18 hours and this information is therefore exempt from disclosure pursuant to s.12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
We can, however, provide the combined values for claims by motorists and cyclists. The details are as follows:
1/1/17 – 1/1/18 – £261,265
1/1/16 – 1/1/17 – £394,211
1/1/15 – 1/1/16 – £1,335,647
1/1/14 – 1/1/15 – £1,107,616
1/1/13 – 1/1/14 – £520,213
2. How many individual a/cyclists and b/motorists have received compensation as a result of claims relating to potholes in each of the last five years?
Please refer to our response to question 1 above with respect to the difficulties with obtaining and providing the information. We can therefore instead provide the combined totals of numbers of claims.
2017 – 2018 – 98
2016 – 2017 – 134
2015 – 2016 – 140
2014 – 2015 – 743
2013 – 2014 – 452
3. What is Devon County Council’s total expenditure on legal costs defending and settling claims, including both their own and the Claimants’ legal costs, for pothole related claims in each of the last five years?
2017 – 2018 – £144,858
2016 – 2017 – £300,892
2015 – 2016 – £528,833
2014 – 2015 – £344,504
2013 – 2014 – £301,716