When a defect appears in the road or on the pathways, there is a duty for the council or local responsible authority or agency to make safe the area or make appropriate reparations. But sometimes, repair work doesn’t quite go as it should do, or is perhaps not done to a proper and safe standard.
So what happens if you trip or fall because an area that has been worked on has either been poorly or incorrectly repaired? Can you claim for personal injury compensation?
The Duty
The duty is for the council or responsible agency / authority to take all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of highway users. This is normally achieved through systems of inspection and maintenance. So, if an area is found to be dangerous and arrangements are made to make safe or repair the area, you’d expect the reparations to result in the area becoming safe.
So what if you trip or fall because a pothole hasn’t been filled in correctly? Or perhaps some repair work has resulted in concrete being raised or broken?
If it is down to poor workmanship, or the work has been carried out incorrectly or to a standard that isn’t as good as it should be, we can allege that they, or the contractors who worked on the area, are liable for a claim for compensation. As long as we can prove that the area has been badly worked on, we can use this as our primary allegation of negligence.
The difficulty can be proving that it is down to bad workmanship as opposed to them suggesting that a defect has appeared in between inspection periods. But work should always be logged, so if we request documentation from the council or whoever is responsible, and it clearly shows work has been carried out and this work isn’t good enough, we will use this as evidence for the case.
100% Compensation
For public liability claims like this, we do offer 100% compensation agreements and we can offer a No Win, No Fee agreement as well. This means that you will not face a 25% deduction that other firms will commonly take from you, and we do not charge you if the case doesn’t win.
For help and advice, call our claims team helpline 0800 634 7575 today.
