£20,000 payout over potholes

MORE than £20,000 in tax payers’ cash has been forked out in compensation to drivers after their vehicles were damaged by pot holes in Nuneaton.

Through a Freedom Of Information (FOI) act request, it has emerged that Warwickshire County Council has paid out £22,503 in compensation as a result of potholes in roads in Nuneaton and Bedworth.

This figure is for the last three financial years alone, so the amount the local authority has paid in total is believed to be a lot higher.

What is known is that there has been 85 claims made by drivers across the borough, but only 12 of them actually resulted in compensation being paid. This means that each successful claim had, on average, £1,875 paid by Shire Hall.

Back in 2014, the government announced £1,708,201 of extra funding to help tackle potholes across Warwickshire, including Nuneaton and Bedworth.

This cash was to be added to the existing budget to help remove what is a menace for motorists, attempting to rid pot holes from the roads.

But, last year, research from FixMyStreet, revealed that Nuneaton and Bedworth was pot hole hell with just 14.4 per cent of problems being fixed.

However, the county council has a team dedicated to try and fix the problems and anyone who would like to report a pot hole can do so by visiting https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/potholes