£15k compensation in 4 years for highways defects in Peterborough as response times go down

In total, the city council has spent £14,656.80 relating to three claims from residents on either roads or cycle/foot paths after receiving 244 complaints.

The council has not revealed the individual examples where it has paid out compensation, but in 2017 the Peterborough Telegraph reported that it was forced to pay £10,000 after a driver took it through a small claims court.

This was after the motorist’s £150,000 Ferrari 458 suffered damage to its suspension and wheel after being driven through Main Street near Ufford when it hit a pothole, resulting in it being taken off the road for three months while parts were sourced from Italy.

Meanwhile, response times to repairs defects in Peterborough has dropped in recent years, both for emergency and non-emergency cases.

Emergency defects, including potholes, should be responded to within two hours, Category 1 defects within 24 hours and Category 2 defects either within seven days, 28 days or three months.

However, the percentage of defects responded to within the correct time has dropped from 100 per cent for emergencies in 2016/17 to 98.8 per cent in 2019/20, while for Category 2 defects the figure has dropped from 94.5 per cent to 85.8 per cent over the same period, but is now said to have risen to 92 per cent since April 2020.

The number of defects repaired by the council has dropped from 6,946 in 2016 to 2,592 in 2020 - a fall of 60 per cent.

This is despite the number of defects being reported to the local authority increasing from 534 to 631 over the same period.

In 2018, there were 946 reports due to a harsh winter creating more potholes than normal, the council said.

A spokesperson told the Peterborough Telegraph: “Most recently we have been celebrated as the top highways authority in the country for overall public satisfaction in the annual National Highways Transport (NHT) survey. In addition to this we have been ranked the best highways authority in the eastern region for the last three years.

“Despite the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic our Highways Services have continued to go above and beyond to look after our roads, as reflected in the Category 2 response time which has improved to 92 per cent this year (April 2020 to December 2020).

“Over recent years we have changed our approach to this type of work to include more schemes to resurface larger areas (e.g. junctions) in order to stop repeat and multiple defects from creating near to each other to reduce the amount of defects in roads occurring.

“This preventative measure appears to have had positive impact as our highway inspectors have been finding less potholes during their routine inspections. As a result, less potholes have needed to be repaired.

“However, during the most recent cold weather we are seeing a spike in the number of potholes presenting due to the freeze-thaw cycle.

“We continue to encourage our residents to report potholes to ensure that we can repair them. The best way to report these is through the Report It Peterborough App in conjunction with Fix My Street - https://report.peterborough.gov.uk/.”