Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Good for him

Normally I don't like the compo culture as the people most often getting hit by it are the general public as sooner or later it leads to higher taxes, premiums or prices as the people paying out seek to recoup their losses. However I'm all for people having the right to sue over someone or some organisation not doing their jobs properly.
Telegraph.
A driver whose car was damaged by potholes in Coventry has won a payout of £2,000 after taking the city council to court. 
Hamilton Bland took on the authority after it refused to compensate him for the damage to his Mercedes.
The damaged was sustained during the city's winter roads crisis in January 2010 when hundreds of new potholes appeared after freezing weather.
The 68-year-old former BBC sports commentator hopes his case may pave the way for other people to take legal action.
He took his claim to Coventry County Court after the council said it wasn't to blame.
Mr Bland argued the impact of hitting two potholes was severe, causing damage to three of the wheels on his Mercedes while he was on his way to a leisure centre for a swim.
There is a little bit more to this case in which it turns out the council had been neglecting the roads as they'd ran out of money, no doubt having to pay for all those diversity co-ordinators, chief executives and translation services. But Coventry were caught out by the fact that  Hamilton Bland simply wasn't going to take "It wasn't our fault" as an acceptable answer. If only because looking after the roads is the responsibility of Coventry Council.
This is a fundamental issue that a lot of councils have lost track of in that most people only want them to empty the bins, light the streets, trim the grass in the parks and fix the roads when they get potholes. What most people do not want their councils doing is pandering to immigrants (translation and housing) paying themselves over the odds, telling us how great they are via a printed paper and ignoring our questions when we do write to them or fobbing us off.
Yes I know councils have to deal with a lot of other stuff, but they should never forget the basics and that's exactly what Coventry Council did. Shame that it wont come out of the pockets of the councillors or the executive.

1 annotations:

JuliaM said...

"Yes I know councils have to deal with a lot of other stuff, but they should never forget the basics..."

It's BECAUSE they've taken on all that other stuff (stuff they should never have got involved in) that they aren't repairing the potholes.