Coventry City Council has confirmed the compensation bill it is paying out every year to settle claims for vehicle damage caused by potholes. Highways officers say the authority is now ‘getting to grips’ with issues on the city’s roads and there is currently a backlog of only 67 potholes left to fix, within a total defects figure of 588, reports Coventry Live.

This has been reduced from an overall backlog of 7,167 carriageway and footway problems awaiting repair in March 2025. Since then, the number of council teams repairing potholes has been increased from six to 10.

It means the average time taken to repair high-priority potholes is getting closer to the expected target of five days, officers said. At the moment the timeframe is 12 days.

But the council has admitted that it’s paying out around £19,000 a year on pothole compensation to motorists who say their vehicles have been damaged by bad roads in the city.

Peter Ullah, highways operations and development manager at the council, revealed in a report to the Communities and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Board:

“The council receives claims from motorists alleging damage to vehicles caused by road defects. Drivers can make claims where they can prove that the City Council did not have a reasonable maintenance system in place. This requires evidence that the Council was negligent in its duties in relation to Section 58 of the Highways Act.

“The Council’s average annual expenditure on pothole-related compensation claims over the last four years has been approximately £19,311.

“This is broadly in line with, and marginally below, the estimated national average for highway authorities, which recent RAC-obtained Freedom of Information data suggests is approximately £20,000 per authority per annum.”

(Picture: Lee Hasler)