Council spends more than £2,000 fighting £190 pothole compensation claim

By JAKE HOLDEN, UK NEWS REPORTER Published: 15:23, 6 July 2026 | Updated: 15:23, 6 July 2026 A council spent more than £2,000 fighting a £190 pothole compensation claim for nearly a year and a half, it has revealed. Victoria Broadbent, 44, hit a pothole and burst the tyre of her Volkswagen Golf in Cirencester in May 2023. Her husband Richard, 54, with whom she shares the car, claimed £189.60 in compensation from Gloucestershire County Council, but they refused to pay out. This was the beginning of what would become a 15-month legal battle that was settled just two days before it was due to go to court. Mr Broadbent submitted a freedom of information request to the council, which revealed that the council had spent £2,139 on legal fees to fight the claim - more than ten times its initial value. The council first rejected the compensation request, citing Section 58 of the Highways Act in defence. This says a local authority can argue it was not liable for damage caused by potholes if it can prove regular checks and maintenance had been done on the road and that it did not know it needed repairs. But Mrs Broadbent had proof that the council did know about the troublesome pothole, but left it in the road. Richard Broadbent, 54, claimed £189.60 in compensation after his car tyre burst in a pothole in May 2023. Gloucestershire County Council rejected his claim and spent £2,139 of taxpayer money over 15-months fighting the request Another driver had hit this pothole and claimed for damages just three weeks before the Broadbents. Gloucestershire County Council denied their claim. They have only paid out on 3.15 per cent of claims in the last five years A site history report showed another driver had hit it just three weeks before she had, and the council had marked it for repair the next working day. The other driver also had her claim denied. But Mr Broadbent, a former Metropolitan Police officer, was not going to drop the case - spending 15 arduous months ringing council lawyers and meeting with a judge. He previously said he had offered the council dashcam footage of the moment Mrs Broadbent ran over the pothole, but they declined to look at it. Instead, lawyers 'hit back hard' and questioned whether 'there was even an incident at all', despite the video footage. Two days before the case would have gone to small claims court, the council offered a settlement - not admitting liability for the damage but paying for the repairs in full and any court costs. Richard told The Times: 'For the council to spend so much time and money contesting this was appalling. 'The idea that this is an organisation committed to public service is frankly ludicrous, given its aggressive and dismissive approach to assessing a legitimate, comprehensively evidenced damages claim by a member of the public. 'The level of determination it showed to maintain a hopeless defence almost to the bitter end does go a long way to explaining how it has managed to consistently pay a lower percentage of claims than almost any other local authority.' The UK roads are riddled with potholes and councils are meant to pay when damage is caused to drivers' cars by them - but in reality only 24 per cent of claims result in a payout.  In Gloucestershire, it is even worse, with the County Council only paying out 3.15 per cent of the 2,539 claims in the past five years. Scott Dixon, who runs the Complaints Resolver website, said: 'Local authorities fight tooth and nail to defend all claims to send out a message that 'you take us on at your peril'. 'There is a bottomless pit of money to deny, delay and deflect claims, yet there's never enough money to maintain the roads, fix the potholes properly and clean gullies to allow surface water to drain off the roads.' Simon Williams from the RAC said that councils often use Section 58 of the Highway Act to avoid having to pay compensation, and said that the council should have paid the Broadbents before racking up thousands in legal fees. He added that the amount paid out to drivers is often well below the actual cost of fixing cars. Just 21 per cent of people surveyed were satisfied with the state of the roads in Gloucestershire, according to National Highways and Transport Network. That's below the country's average of 26 per cent. Satisfaction on how the council dealt with pothole claims was only 22 per cent - also below the national average of 27 per cent. The Daily Mail has contacted Gloucestershire County Council for a comment.