The Weather Thread

[COYBL25]

@COYBL25 ......phew long , long time since I did this so please excuse my memory.

The Highways Act of 1980 places a duty on Local Authorities to maintain the pavements and roads. If they fail in that duty and an accident occurs as a result they can sued for damages for a " breach of statutory duty ".

However Sec 58 gives them a defence if they can show that they have a reasonable system of inspection to identify defects and spend reasonable resources to repair.

Here we are talking about missing paving stones , rocking paving stones or pot holes. The Court has traditionally said that any defect less than 1" would not give rise to liability.

The 1980 Act never conferred a duty upon the local.authority to grit pavements or clear snow etc and at one point there was a school of legal thoughts that if they did and did so inadequately that would give rise to a claim in negligence.

As a result and because of a paucity of resources gritting pavements has never really been something that the LA do.

They do grit roads but again if there is a RTA as a result of a failure to grit that's unlikely to lead to a successful claim

Hope my recollection is correct.

Thanks for that.

So it would appear it’s all about money.

Slightly off topic, it would appear this is the same reason so many of the grids across the city are blocked, causing flooding on the roads every time it rains.