For each of these calendar years – 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 – please answer the following questions:
1. How many claims for pothole-related damage did the council receive from drivers?
2019 – 616
2020 – 871
2021 – 789
2022 – 652
2023 – 1,697
2. How many claims resulted in the council paying out to drivers (i.e. the number of successful pothole-related damage claims recorded)?
2019 – 180
2020 – 296
2021 -185
2022 – 125
2023 – 299
3. What is the average sum that was paid out to drivers per claim?
2019 – £268
2020 – £301
2021 – £263
2022 – £261
2023 – £214
4. How much has the council paid in legal fees to defend pothole claims from drivers?
2019 – £3,895
2020 – £3,370
2021 – £3,516
2022 – £12,148
2023 – £33,232
5. How many claims for compensation (property/vehicle damage or injury) were refused due to your authority not knowing about the existence of a particular pothole i.e. using Section 58 2d of the Highways Act 1980 ‘Special defence in action against a highway authority for damages for non-repair of highway’ which states: ‘whether the highway authority knew, or could reasonably have been expected to know, that the condition of the part of the highway to which the action relates was likely to cause danger to users of the highway’
Devon County Council does hold this information, however, compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. To locate and extract the information requested would require a manual review of 2,469 case files at a minimum of 5 minutes per case file, or 206 hours of officer time. Therefore, this information is withheld.
Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance about how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held, this is not possible for this request.