Rise in claims to Suffolk County Council over road defects and potholes – but council says it is taking proactive steps this winter
The state of the roads in Suffolk has been described as ‘awful’, as figures reveal a significant rise in claims to the highways authority.
The number of highways insurance claims to Suffolk County Council (SCC) for road defects including potholes jumped from 221 in 2022 to 583 the following year. However, only 10 per cent of last year’s claims were successful.
Earlier this month SCC, the local highways authority, launched a pothole prevention programme to target areas of Suffolk’s road network that could worsen when the winter weather hits, using additional resources and the latest technology.
Flynn Paterson, assistant manager of STS Tyre Pros, in Tayfen Road, Bury St Edmunds, described the roads as ‘just awful’ – and in terms of the prevention initiative helping, he said: “I will believe it when I see it.
“Everywhere you go there’s a pothole somewhere. I would say it’s getting worse and worse.
“It doesn’t give a good image to the people who are visiting Bury, I would say, when it causes problems for people.”
STS is bracing itself for another busy winter, when work becomes ‘non-stop’.
Mr Paterson said in the winter time his company probably dealt with 50 cars a week with pothole damage.
“That’s a ridiculous amount and it’s a conversation we have with every customer,” he said.
He said last November time there was a pothole right outside the business and in one day they had five customers hit the pothole and drive straight into the centre.
He also flagged up Station Hill, in Bury, as ‘just awful’. Speaking of an incident there in May this year, he said: “One time I was going up there just to grab some lunch from the grill there and a police car pulled me over and said ‘why are you driving like that?’ and I said ‘to dodge the potholes’ and he drove away.”
As well as potholes causing tyre damage, they could also affect wheel alignment and crack wheels, Mr Paterson said.
Adrian Graves, of Great Barton, spent around £2,000 in a year on tyre, wheel and related damage to his Mercedes C-Class caused by potholes.
While he looked at the process for making a claim against SCC, he said he realised ‘I was just smacking my head against a brick wall’.
“The whole thing is stacked against the claimant,” he said.
The semi-retired transport and infrastructure consultant described the roads as ‘poor’.
He said: “I have driven a lot in Europe in the last 12 months, particularly in France, and even their minor roads, their surface maintenance is substantively ahead of ours by quite a long way.
“And their autoroutes are second to none. They are absolutely fantastic. German roads are the same.
“We are the poor relation of Europe when it comes to maintaining our infrastructure, whether that’s roads or railways, whatever that is.”
He said he would be watching very closely to see if the prevention programme had an impact.
The figures, which came from a Freedom of Information request submitted by SuffolkNews, also revealed that in the first seven months of this year 445 highways insurance claims were made to SCC.
However, the number of claims dropped from 400 in 2021 to 221 in 2022.
You can make a claim if you think a highway defect has caused injury or damage.
Horringer resident Piers Fuller said: “Why should the public have to foot the bill, when there should already be a road network maintained to a suitable standard?”
He said the Stradishall crossroads, on the A143 between Bury and Haverhill, was a problem area for potholes and believes that section requires a proper resurface.
“It’s just a patchwork quilt effect,” he added. “If they did a proper job it would last significantly longer.”
Mr Fuller hit out at the state of the roads in February when some 15 vehicles were strewn within 100 yards of an ‘extremely large’ pothole along the A143, at Horringer.
A Suffolk Highways spokeswoman said: “Suffolk Highways has recently launched a pothole prevention programme aimed at reducing the number of potholes on the county's road network during the winter months.
“This initiative is in addition to our highway teams working to address highway issues daily.
“Since October 2023, more than 21,000 potholes have been repaired, demonstrating our commitment to improving highway infrastructure.”
SCC said teams with additional resources and the latest technology had already started visiting and treating locations susceptible to deterioration or where there were smaller defects that could grow as the colder and wetter weather arrived.
Building on the success of earlier trials with the Roadmender Elastomac and Dragon Patcher machines, teams will be deployed across the county to use this equipment in addition to the council’s usual safety defect service, that deals with larger defects as they occur.
Cllr Paul West, SCC cabinet member for Ipswich, operational highways and flooding, said: “Cold and wet weather often wreaks havoc with our roads, which is why we have taken proactive steps and developed a targeted campaign to tackle and provide resilience to our road network ahead of this winter.”
He said the prevention programme’s goal was to reduce the number of more substantial defects that might cause safety concerns to road users throughout the winter.
The plan was to get ahead of pothole repairs between now and December prior to the drop in temperatures, mostly in January, February and March, when the largest number of potholes formed, Cllr West added.
The council said highways authorities up and down the country experienced a rise in potholes during the winter months, when water seeps into cracks and freezes, expanding and then breaking up the road surface.
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