Car Damaged By Pothole - Can One Claim From Local Council?

[Nollywood]

Wow. It gets worse. The car has been given a quick once-over by a bodyshop, and it's not looking good. The impact has damaged the A-post, so we're talking shell distortion. The sunroof is not sitting proud at the left front corner, the paint is creased at the top of the A-pillar, the passenger door is hard to shut and there's a gap at the top leading edge of the door frame that a lady could almost get her small finger into.

Will know more tomorrow when the shop is open, the shop owner only came in to receive the car. But, he thinks it's a possibility the car will be a write-off, the shell will need to be jigged.

[HPsauce]

As a regular visitor to "St Petersburg" I'd seriously want to avoid that hole.
Any idea where it is and is it on here: http://www.fixmystreet.com/reports/Peterborough ?

[Nollywood]

Originally Posted by HPsauce

As a regular visitor to "St Petersburg" I'd seriously want to avoid that hole.
Any idea where it is and is it on here: http://www.fixmystreet.com/reports/Peterborough ?

I have no idea, I can find out though.

[Adrian E]

Presume they're talking to their insurance company already? They may want to deal with it, although risk is they go 50:50 and your friends end up losing some ncb....

[limoncello]

you may have trouble proving to the council that the pothole was solely responsible for this amount of damage, their quick responses and attitude to pothole damage seems to stem from policy due to the fact that its cheaper to pay for damage than fix the road damage properly, certainly in leeds the repairs are extremely cheap and shoddy and last very little time before the pothole is back and worse

having an insurance company pushing the point will probably help the situation

[Nollywood]

Update:

The cheapest estimate out of three so far is £2,795. So it has been declared a write-off. The Council are footing the bill, and a 2011 Ford Focus 2,0 TDci has been supplied as a courtesy car. My wife's friend works for the Crown Prosecution Service, and can't do without a car.

Her insurance company has gotten involved, and together with an engineer's report, the council have no choice but to pay for a replacement car. Interestingly, the AA recovery guy said he recovered a 2008 Ford Transit Connect just days before this incident, a victim of the same pothole, though in that case, the damage was limited to suspension components. He included this in his report, and the CPS has taken care of the rest.

Fingers crossed.

[Adrian E]

Sounds like a brilliant result - apart from the obvious that they probably would've preferred it not to happen in the first place!

I should imagine working for the CPS has its benefits in access to legal advice too lol

[sarg]

just make sure it is a courtesy car and not a hire car - if for some reason the claim fails, your friend would be liable for the hire car costs, and that would almost certainly be over a grand a week

[Dezzy]

I'm quite a logical person and i can never for the life of me work out why a sign can't be placed beside / close by to warn road users of the uneven surface. A van has sustained damage there too so it can’t be treated as a surprise. We can’t just assume that every road user is in a van or car, what about people on motorbikes? You could be killed!

[christhompson]

I guess it can't hurt if the owner works for the CPS