Wiltshire’s Liberal Democrats have claimed that the compensation costs for wheels and tyres damaged by potholes in the county have more than doubled since before the pandemic.
The group has predicted that the cost for the council is likely to exceed £120,000 for 2023/24.
However, the leader of Wiltshire Council, Richard Clewer, said that they are just “playing political games” and “throwing stones".
He argues that the overall amount paid in highway claims is dropping, along with the average payment per claim.
Within this data, the Lib Dems are highlighting an increase in claims for wheel and tyre damage, “as a useful indicator of the number of potholes”.
Their analysis found that over six years prior to the pandemic, the number of compensation claims for wheel and tyre damage was at an average of around 1,000 per year, with the average settlement cost just under £55,000.
In 2022/23, the number of claims was 30 per cent higher with an average cost of more than £96,000; and in 2023/24 the number is 60 per cent higher, with the sum paid out for the year to the end of March nearly twice the pre-Covid average.
According to the Lib Dems, this implies the total cost to the council will be around £120,000 for the 2023/24 financial year.
Tisbury councillor, Richard Budden, said: “This data is clear evidence that our worst fears are fully justified.
“Each of these claims is testament to the danger of potholes to road users, whether in vehicles, on bicycles, on foot or on horseback.
“But, together with the evidence it provides of inconvenience and disruption to their lives, it quantifies the significant monetary cost to the council of both neglecting the maintenance of our roads for so long, and failing to repair them in a timely manner when they break down.
“In addition to this, though, I am surprised to find the council does not collect the data in a form that will permit us to assess which areas of the county are worst affected; though, in truth, this is merely consistent with their record keeping of maintenance costs more generally.
“We know the areas of the county where the roads are in the worst state.
“My own area of South West Wiltshire, together with Malmesbury, Chippenham, Wooton Bassett, Calne, Bradford on Avon, and Westbury all have road networks significantly worse than the national median, contributing to the reasons for the Office for Local Government to rank Wiltshire’s roads 275th out of 317 authorities in England and Wales.”
Cllr Clewer described the referenced Oflog data as a “joke”, echoing his prior criticism of the ranking when it was first published.
Regarding Cllr Budden’s analysis, he argued the “overall picture” shows that the total amount of money Wiltshire Council is paying out on insurance claims has “pretty consistently reduced year on year”.
He said: “To take bits of that in isolation, it logically doesn’t make sense.”
He added: “The investment, the work, the programme that we’ve put in, is reducing the amount of insurance claims, which shows that we are prioritising the stuff that is most important.”
Cllr Clewer said the claims were “political grandstanding” from the Lib Dems.
The council has allocated an extra £10 million over the next two years to spend on filling potholes and a road resurfacing programme, as well as an extra £1m in its recent budget for emptying gullies.
On May 29, a further £1 million investment was announced for flood prevention measures.
The council leader concluded: “At last year’s budget, you will have noticed there wasn’t a single proposal from the Lib Dems to actually try and address any of this, to put any money into it, and they then voted against the budget, despite the fact the budget embedded all of that funding into our base.”
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