{"id":1093152,"date":"2026-07-16T16:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1093152\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T16:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:33:15","slug":"london-councils-reject-two-thirds-of-drivers-damage-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1093152\/","title":{"rendered":"London councils reject two thirds of drivers\u2019 damage claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over a thousand London motorists have been denied compensation for damage caused by potholes, according to new figures from freedom of information requests.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

1,539 claims for vehicle damage have been rejected across London councils since 2022, the equivalent of more than two-thirds of all claims and three in four of those that reached a decision.<\/p>\n

Councils are responsible and have a legal duty to maintain public roads under the Highways Act 1980, meaning drivers can claim compensation for vehicle damage or personal injuries if they can prove negligence; however, legally the council are allowed to reject claims if it can show they were unaware of the pothole and carried out regular inspections of the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some argue that councils have failed to dedicate resources to places that need it most. William Yarwood, campaigns director at the TaxPayers\u2019 Alliance<\/a>, said: \u201cLondoners are being clobbered by soaring council tax, yet still left driving over cratered roads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRejecting three times as many pothole claims as they accept will leave motorists feeling town hall bosses are dodging responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncils should stop wasting money on vanity projects and focus on fixing the roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across 19 out of 32 councils that recorded the outcome of pothole claims, 2,263 claims were made by drivers since 2022.<\/p>\n

Of those, 1,539 were rejected, 505 were successful to the claimant, and 2,263 claims are pending a decision, meaning 68 per cent of all claims were rejected, increasing to 75 per cent once pending cases are set aside.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Councils across London that answered the freedom of information request spent a total of \u00a3422,025 on successful claims over the period, an average of \u00a3836 per successful claim.<\/p>\n

Croydon received by far the most claims of any London borough, 391 claims in total \u2013 rejecting 325 of them and paid out in just 60 cases, a refusal rate of 84 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The borough also recorded the single largest individual payout of \u00a329,687.<\/p>\n

A Croydon Council spokesperson said: \u201cWe know what a nuisance potholes are to road users and that\u2019s why we have increased investment in this area, with a total of \u00a314.5m on highway maintenance across the borough last financial year (2025\/26).<\/p>\n

\u201cCroydon has one of the longest transport<\/a> networks in London, which includes: 726 kilometres of carriageways; 1,235 kilometres of footways; and 62 highway-maintained structures and bridges.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of Executive Mayor Jason Perry\u2019s first 100 days of his new term, a new pothole patrol system has been launched to help us to fix defects as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur highways are improving as a result of this recent investment and planned interventions, such as regular inspections and condition surveys, and the number of pothole compensation claims has decreased since 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year Sir Keir Starmer pledged \u00a31.6bn in ring-fenced funding for potholes, warning that damaged roads \u201ccan risk lives and cost families hundreds if not thousands of pounds on repairs\u201d.<\/p>\n

Featured image credit: Pexels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over a thousand London motorists have been denied compensation for damage caused by potholes, according to new figures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1093153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,44231,393,4884,257,18233,16,15],"class_list":["post-1093152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-drivers","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-london","tag-potholes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116930622839622989","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1093153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}