Million pound highway claims

Rochdale Borough Council estimates that the cost to the Council in highway claims is over a million pounds in 2011/12.

Councillors are to be asked at the forthcoming (Wednesday 17 October) full council meeting to approve to prioritize the evidencing expenditure on claims and recording repairs to ensure the Council can successfully defend highway claims and reduce the number of claims currently settled.

The Council has recently appointed new claims handlers who have been linked to work closely with the Highways Team to share data and to keep records up to date.

The Highways service also recently established a highways hot spot reporting facility with the aim to risk assess all reactive maintenance service requests to the Contact Centre within three working days. Where works are required then non urgent repairs are completed within twenty working days.

The current maintenance backlog is estimated at £33million.