To give you the insight as to whether you have a potentially winning claim if this has happened to you, I need to explain in brief how the law works:
The Highways Act 1980 puts a duty on local councils and highways authorities to take all reasonable steps to prevent a defect on the highway becoming a hazard. So to do this, they must employ a system of inspection and maintenance to review roads and paths for defects that have formed. These can be potholes, broken kerbs, or anything that could cause a tripping hazard.
A reasonable system of inspection should take in to account how busy the area is. So a city centre road may be inspected every one to three months, and a country road could be every 12 months. So if they can prove that they have a system that is reasonable, they’ve kept to it, and that the defect that caused your injury must have arisen in between inspection periods, they can very easily defend your claim.
Now, a kerb could break at any moment, and a pothole can form over just a few short weeks; but tree roots will normally gradually push the surface of the concrete up over time and eventually a hazard is formed. So what are your prospects of success?
Well the council can also defend the claim if a potential hazard is not yet deemed dangerous enough to take action. So it may be forming gradually and slowly over time, but they will likely do nothing about it until it actually becomes dangerous in their eyes. The general unwritten rule is if a defect is more than an inch in depth or height, it is seen as a defect.
But there are other things to consider – if the rest of the area has the same problem and several repairs have already been made to other areas, why would the council not foresee that this was going to eventually become a hazard as well? If the inspection regime is every 9 to 12 months, have they considered whether before the next inspection is due the hazard will become what they class as a reasonable defect?
Ultimately these types of cases can always be difficult to win, but with a smart lawyer like us, you have the best chance possible. We operate a No Win, No Fee and 100% compensation policy for these types of claims so you’ve nothing to lose by instructing us.
We can make investigations online and in the local area to see how long the defect has been there for as well.
