Driver 'frustrated' by pothole compensation delay

The pothole in Littlewell Lane, Stanton, which damaged John Tagg's Mercedes in March

A man who damaged his car by hitting a pothole says he is still waiting for compensation from a council six months later.

John Tagg, 54, from Alvaston in Derby, hit a pothole filled with water in Littlewell Lane, Stanton by Dale, Derbyshire, on 28 March.

Nearly £600 worth of damage was caused to his Mercedes C220 AMG Sport Plus which needed both front tyres replacing and most of the exhaust, he said.

Derbyshire County Council apologised for not getting to Mr Tagg's claim before now and a spokesperson said they were dealing with a backlog of compensation claims due to a "particularly wet winter and spring".

The damage caused to the exhaust of the Mercedes by the pothole, according to Mr Tagg

The metre-wide and 20cm-deep pothole was repaired in May but Mr Tagg said he had still not received a response to his claim in April.

More than six months since the claim, Mr Tagg told the Local Democracy Reporting Service of his "frustration and annoyance".

"I feel the council are just taking liberties over paying out," he said.

"If they had carried out their duties and maintained the public highway I would not still be waiting to be reimbursed for my repairs.

"Now I can't even contact them [the council] directly as they seem to have put the highway claim department in a protective bubble. It's a farce."

As council staff try to deal with the claims backlog, they were not answering phone call requests for updates as it could hold up their work, a county council spokesperson said.

"We do realise that this is frustrating, but stopping taking phone calls does mean that ultimately we can get to all the applications more quickly," they added.

"The process for submitting an application is online, so once someone has submitted an application they can be sure that we have it and will deal with it in time."