Dad pushes council to cough up for windscreen repairs
Posted by Anna Macintyre on Thursday, 2 Aug 2012, 17:21 in UK Motoring
A motorist from Houghton le Spring, near Sunderland, has hit out at council officials who have refused accept blame for vehicle damage that he says was caused by a pothole. Father-of-three Paul Pye claims that a loose stone flew up off the road and chipped the windscreen of his Lexus, after the vehicle hit one of the many potholes on his street. The 34-year-old told the Sunderland Echo that the condition of the road on The Potteries estate has never been good, but has deteriorated significantly over the past 12 months. "It cracked about a quarter of the way up on the driver's side," he told the newspaper. "An inspector came out to look at the potholes and said they were not an emergency repair. "The council refused to pay my excess, but they filled the potholes in a couple of days after I reported it. Now they've come to resurface the whole road. I just want them to pay the £75 excess." A spokesman for Sunderland City Council said the case had been investigated and the claim for compensation assessed, but that no payout would be made to Mr Pye. Earlier this year a report into potholes in Britain, commissioned by the Department of Transport, called on authorities in England to make sure that repairs were carried out correctly the first time in order to avoid recurring issues.
