Councils reject 75% of pothole claims, but still fork out millions fixing damaged cars

Drivers are unlikely to receive compensation after hitting a pothole, as new figures suggest three in four claims submitted to local councils for pothole damage are denied.

Freedom of Information requests from the BBC uncovered that on average in Britain, only 24 per cent of pothole claims were paid out over a five-year period between April 2020 and March 2025. Only 147 of the 207 councils across England, Scotland and Wales responded to the requests, but these authorities still received 146,000 claims over this timeframe and ended up paying out roughly £13.5 million for the claims they approved.

Almost a tenth of payouts came from Shropshire Council alone which, over the past half a decade, has forked out more than £1 million on pothole compensation, or the equivalent of 71 per cent of claims. Others, such as Essex County Council, have payout rates as low as five per cent.

Drivers can put in a claim to their local council or highway authority if their vehicle has been damaged by a pothole or damaged road. However, they must be able to prove that not only did the road cause their vehicle damage and that it cost money to fix, but that also the authority was negligent and did not repair a road it knew was in disrepair. If the council can prove it had no knowledge of the pothole’s existence, it doesn’t have to pay.

At the beginning of this year, the RAC found that pothole claims across the country had nearly doubled over a three-year period, rising by 91 per cent from 27,731 in 2021 to 53,015 in 2024.

Head of policy at the RAC, Simon Williams, said: “The massive three-year rise in pothole compensation claims made by drivers shows what a huge task it is returning the roads to a respectable standard.”

In the 2026 edition of its annual ALARM report, the UK’s chief roadbuilding trade body, Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), estimated that the one-off cost to repair the crumbling roads across England and Wales would be in excess of £18.6 billion.

This year, the Government has issued £1.6 billion to councils for local highway maintenance and repair – a figure that’s set to rise to £2 billion annually by the end of the decade. New rules are forcing councils to prove how and where they’re spending this cash, otherwise they face losing a proportion of it.

That said, the AIA’s president, Malcolm Simms, previously told Auto Express that the key to getting a grip on the issue is by frontloading any maintenance investment as “while [roads] aren’t maintained, they will therefore cost more to put right.”

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