Pothole payouts spark top Tory's attack on government 'chronic underfunding'

PAYOUTS for vehicles damaged by potholes in Hampshire surged to nearly £100,000 as the county council’s Conservative highways chief accused the government of “chronic underfunding”.

The authority coughed up £99,726 compensation in 2018/19, according to research by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) using the Freedom of Information Act.

That compares to £55,357 the year before – a rise of just over 80%. The number of successful claims also went up by 59% from 119 to 189.

In the New Forest reports for road surface repairs went up from 4,675 to 4,970. The worst affected in 2018/19 was Ringwood Road in Fordingbridge. The year before it was Lymington Road in Brockenhurst.

However, overall road surface reports to Hampshire County Council actually fell by just over 4% from 22,301 to 21,316.

Its spending on repairing roads rose slightly from £27.5m to £30.3m – despite HCC having to make spending cuts overall of about £480m since 2008 due to government austerity policies.

In response, Cllr Rob Humby, HCC’s Conservative cabinet member for economy, transport and environment, renewed his plea for more money with an attack on the government’s spending priorities.

He told the A&T: “Looking after Hampshire’s network of over 5,500 miles of road is a priority, but has to be considered alongside the huge financial pressures in children’s and adults’ social care services.

“Hampshire County Council is committed to providing well maintained roads, and adds £10m per annum from local funds to support road maintenance.

“But the chronic underfunding of local road maintenance by successive national governments has left local councils with little choice other than presiding over a managed decline of the road network.

“We are also now expected to assemble money from our hard pressed roads maintenance budget to repair key infrastructure of national economic importance, such as the bridges over the Redbridge Causeway, which historically would have been supported by national funding.”

He added: “Each claim for compensation is investigated to determine liability, as it is essential to ensure that council taxpayers’ money is used appropriately.”

In Dorset the former county council received 5,382 road surface reports in 2018/19 – up from 4,153 the year before despite repairs spending climbing from £1.66m to £1.78m.

The value of compensation went up from a combined £204 paid out to two people to £2,963 shared between seven.

Across England the FSB said nearly £2m was paid out by councils for damaged vehicles in 2018/19, with just over 7,700 successful claims out of a total of 31,620. The bill for road repairs came to nearly £950m. There were 699,535 reports of damaged roads.

The FSB’s national chair, Mike Cherry, said the compensation figures ought to be a call to action to improve the highways for traders and customers.

He said: “Potholes are a major concern for the nation’s small businesses. Our members rely heavily on the local road network, with their staff, customers and trade deliveries, dependent on fast and efficient road networks.

“Poorly looked-after roads peppered with holes and cracks not only hamper their ability to do business, but lead to damaged vehicles, which are often vital assets to small firms often working without large capital reserves.

“Measures like more funding for local authorities and improving the coordination between authorities and utility companies, will go some way in helping ease the burden of this ever-growing issue.”