Jogger set for pay-out from Yorkshire council after tripping on pothole

Lee Crawley, of Wilford Road, Barnsley, could not bear weight on his left ankle for 10 days after he stepped in the pothole in Hill Top Avenue during a Saturday evening jog in January 2012.

He claimed that Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council’s negligence and breach of duty had caused his injury but the authority denied liability.

On Thursday, by a majority, the Court of Appeal dismissed the council’s challenge against a judge’s finding in Mr Crawley’s favour.

Barnsley council said it was not to blame because it took such care as in all the circumstances was reasonably required to ensure the highway was not dangerous.

The appeal judges heard that a member of the public phoned the council to report “deep potholes” at 4.20pm on the day before the accident - a Friday.

The call was logged and forwarded to the highway inspectors but the council took no further action that day.

On Monday morning, a highway inspector switched on his computer, read the message and hastily set off to inspect the pothole.

He reported the defect and said it must be repaired within 24 hours, which was done.

The council’s system was that if the emergency services reported a serious defect in a road that was in a sensitive location, the call centre staff would refer the matter to the emergency standby team, which would take any necessary action.

With any other reported defect, an inspector would go to the site the day after the phone call or three days later if a weekend intervened.

Mr Crawley’s lawyers told the Court of Appeal that it was unacceptable for the council to do nothing until the Monday, and the weekend did not justify any delay in inspection.

Lord Justice Briggs said the council’s system suffered from the built-in flaw that reports of potentially serious defects would not be evaluated at all by someone with the requisite skill out of working hours, unless they came from members of the emergency services.

Lord Justice Irwin said that it may be perfectly reasonable to have a reduced staff and activity over a weekend, but there must be some means of responding quickly to complaints from the public of serious and dangerous defects in the road.

Lord Justice Jackson, who dissented, said the report clearly called for action but not for an overnight response or urgent attendance by the emergency standby team during the weekend.