Hopefully this is a fairly simple question.

Do councils have a duty of care to ensure that roads are in a fit state for cycling?

If a council recieves a number of complaints about a road and then does nothing to repair the surface claiming that the defects are acceptable.

Then someone suffers any damage or personal injury is there any comeback?

Basically i know of a number of roads that driven no issue but the nature of the defect does not meet the councils published standard but would pose a danger to a cyclist. Think 2-3inch wide trench that is 3-4inches deep in places where a road repair is failing, a couple of feet from the curb running along the direction of travel, non continuously for a few metres. The road is also unlit etc.

Hop onto the ‘fill that hole’ site and get it reported.

Yes to both questions, but only once defects have been reported.

Injury liability claims are costing the taxpayer a fortune, meaning less money in the public purse to repair the damage. It’s a vicious circle.

Yes to both questions, but only once defects have been reported.

They presumably have been reported – the OP says the council deems the defects are acceptable. Thats not saying that any defect is acceptable but theres a minimum size / depth a hole or lump needs to be before the councll are compelled to act. If the defects are within that minimum then they don’t have to repair, and should an accident result the hole will still be considered a sufficiently responsible cause- the ambulance chasing no-win-no-fee lawyers will need to prove the defect is sufficient and the council seem confident that its not.

Where this falls down though is in the OPs case where a there are a lot of defects, all minor but cumulatively major. The defects are considered individually not collectively.

I have reported the defect, i have submitted a claim and i have been rejected by the council. TO be honest there are a number of reports of the same defect on the fillthatholes site going back a number of years and as far as the council is concerned it is fine as it doesn’t meet their idea of a problem. The road has been falling apart for years, they patch the odd bit but leave some holes everytime.

To be honest i don’t care about the bike damage, more that the road gets fixed before someone gets hurt.

edit- I have submitted a freedom of information request to the council to see what they have actually done.

Good question but I don’t know the answer :p Are their nationally recognised guidelines around potholes or do local councils make up their own? If there are guidelines but councils are still free to set their own (and your pothole falls between the two ‘standards’ then you might have a case but I’d imagine it would have to go to court and get expensive, can’t see no-win-no-fee people touching it either.

Councills have intervention standards. When a defect is above a certain limit they act. Ask your Council. Plus a little used piece of legislation in s56 Highways Act. You can serve notice on the highway authority. They then accept that the road is theirs to maintain and state whether it is out of repair or not. If it is they should repair. If they say not you can take them to the magistrates. Cheaper to repair

Case law…

Burnside Vs Emerson 1968.

Ruled that council has a duty to keep highway:

“in such good repair as renders it reasonably passable for the ordinary traffic of the neighbourhood at all seasons of the year without danger caused by its physical condition.”

It’s reasonable to expect the average cyclist to cycle around most potholes thus making the highway “reasonably passable”.

In a cycling context “ordinairy traffic” means a standard bicycle desinged to cope with the odd pothole.

We’ve shifted from having our vehicles (cars, motorcycles, bicycles) being designed for the roads (bicycles 50 years ago shod with wheels tyres designed for untarmacced carriageways, cars and bikes shod with high profile tyres with multi surface tread) to expecting our roads to be designed for our vehicles ie ridiculously low profile tyres designed for smooth tarmac, narrow wheels on bicycles focused on velodrome use and semi slicks on motorbikes.

Injury liability claims are costing the taxpayer a fortune, meaning less money in the public purse to repair the damage. It’s a vicious circle.

and its costing the NHS, a huge amount of cash and time to repair and rehabilaitate customers who injure themselves ,caused by someone sitting in an office deciding to save some cash on not repairing the defects.

Also a can of spray paint, and sign the defect, with large arrows as a a defect, contact the local paper, and your local councillor for that area, and keep ringing every day until they do something.

“been rejected by the council”
they always will reject every claim the first view times. keep chipping away, the process is designed to make claiming diificult.

also try a cycling injury claims solicitor,
like http://www.bikeline.co.uk

It’s reasonable to expect the average cyclist to cycle around most potholes thus making the highway “reasonably passable”.

Is that from case law, or your own interpretation? I’m not sure it’s at all reasonable for a cyclist to have to ride around a pothole when that puts them into the path of the driver coming past.

Surely it doesn’t matter what the minimum size the council thinks they have to repair is – if it’s sufficient to cause an accident then they are liable?

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/207.html

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/207.html

http://ukcyclerules.com/2011/10/10/potholes-cycling-law/

Surely it doesn’t matter what the minimum size the council thinks they have to repair is – if it’s sufficient to cause an accident then they are liable?

I’d have though even more so, as you can prove they knew about the hole, and made a decision to do nothing, asuming you told them about it, not just assuemd they’d do nothing, and if you told them then you’d have to come up with a reason why you rode into a hole you knew was there.

IANAL

The council has a duty of care to provide inspection and maintenance activity reasonable with regard to the resources and budget available. There are guidelines in the Highways Code of Practise which dictate this and long term maintenance is predicted using the parameters of UKPMS.

Beyond that they are dependant on issues being reported. FWIW they are current fighting a losing battle as weather conditions dictate increased an unpredicted damage to the Highway vs the Governments Austerity measures.

“been rejected by the council”
they always will reject every claim the first view times. keep chipping away, the process is designed to make claiming diificult.

i am well aware of this, hence the FOI request, i want to see what they have actually done, and the complaints they have got, CTC site lists at least 4 complaints against the stretch of road over the last couple of years.

The councils letter says they inspected the problem and it wasn’t bad enough so they weren’t going to fix it.

Beyond that they are dependant on issues being reported. FWIW they are current fighting a losing battle as weather conditions dictate increased an unpredicted damage to the Highway vs the Governments Austerity measures.

Whilst recent weather won’t have helped i don’t remember any proper work on this road in ten years at least!
Just fill a hole and wait for a new one to emerge then fill that. Whilst it isn’t a main road it is a very busy cut through, it also forms part of a cycle route and is very badly lit.

Re your last para momo,you are right. Is symptomatic of decreasing budgets – spend what you have fixing things quickly everywhere, rather than most if what you have on 1 road that’d be in good nick for 25 years – what then would you do with the other roads that needed repair?

The Audit Commission are busy trying to change this attitude but it needs a cash injection. Pfi was one way, son of pfi where contractors are performance managed to a standard over a long period for a fixed cost is the next idea.

The hardest part of all this is that we expect the same standards to be maintained regardless of millions of pounds in cuts to the funding councils receive and year on year reductions in staff numbers.

If council officers are aware they will act but if they are constrained by funding and staff shortages…

CTC probably a good group to ask. Are the defects listed on their site fillthathole ?

If you haven’t come across it – an excellent site for reporting road problems.

Krtyon57, to a point i agree, there is only so much money, and there will always be conflicting claims. But why fix one hole and ignore the equally large hole next to it that wasn’t marked for repair because it emerged after the first was marked…

I know the reason but it makes no real sense for tax payers, it does for the contractor…

Fair point. In my experience I’ve seen that happen because the contractor won’t do work the council hasn’t authorised beforehand in case they don’t get paid.

In a better relationship they might have phoned for authorisation, or just done it knowing its in everyone’s interest and they’ll get paid later.

The council will have to work to the government guidelines regarding highways inspections. They should have a set regime of inspections that ensure that all highways are inspected on a regular basis. This inspection regime is what they deem to be an acceptable period in which any defects could appear or escalate in severity. The council can choose not to work within the government guidelines but this leaves them open to high levels of claims.
The issue arises because potholes can appear in a couple of hours on a heavily trafficked road and as such these are the ones which should be reported as unless an inspector is passing it won’t get spotted. Once reported the authority should have another set of guidelines that dictate how quickly the defect should be inspected (if at all) and in turn the time scale of the maintenance response to it. Generally speaking to prove a council is negligent you have to prove that they have not kept to their inspection or maintenance regime.
With the current cutbacks there are less inspectors to cover the areas. This in turn leads to more claims and more payouts and less money for inspectors. Then the whole thing keeps going round. The whole thing becomes reactive which in turn takes money from the proactive maintenance schemes.

All I can say is good luck!

Couple years back, riding to work early Sunday morning in surbiton, surrey. Came to a junction bottom of high street, hit a 6″ deep tear in road, thrown over bars into road.

Thankfully no cars coming . Defect had been reported on line, but council claimed no record of defects. Tore saddle/grips, shorts and top; blood and skin left on road, sore for a week with whiplash.

Sought legal help from specialist service.council gave them run around for months. Nothing was resolved. Other cyclists hurt on same junction after my accident. 5 months later they fixed the problem….