Roads staff told to order fewer repairs

ROADS inspectors were told to stop ordering repairs to save cash – as pothole claims rocketed.

A probe found half of repairs sampled were below council ‘intervention levels’ and this was ‘placing a pressure on resources’.

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is now spending £17,000 to train them to keep orders down, including ‘courtroom techniques’ when defending claims.

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Bosses say orders are now meeting intervention levels, classed as ‘urgent/necessary’ and where a pothole is deeper than 4cms and a footway defect is deeper than 2cm.

A council report said inspectors ‘have a culture of ensuring, as far as practicable, that highway areas are safe, and mindful of any challenge in the courts, at times, they may have ordered works which were below our intervention levels’.

It said they ‘do not have a true appreciation of the costs of the works that they are ordering’.

It comes as bosses admit ‘the network is in a poorer structural condition than in previous years’.

And they said insurance claims from drivers who have damaged their vehicles ‘do relate to actual problems on the highway’.

But 80 to 90 per cent of claims are rejected ‘due to our robust inspection regime’.

Claims have rocketed by 100 per cent in the last two years, the report said.

There were 300 in 2009 – and 100 in the first six weeks of this year, which followed a major snowfall that damaged roads.

The report warns: “The impact on resources due to the volume of claims has become a significant challenge.”

The council agreed the training recommendation.

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