A recent news article has highlighted that local councils in the North East of England collectively paid out millions pounds each year over the past four years as a result of personal injury claims. The vast majority of these incidents were as a result of people being injured by defective pathways, pavements and roads. This shows that despite it being clearly defined what each authority must do to look after its residents, all too often they fail to meet the proper standard. 

 

Legally, the local authority, usually the local council, is duty bound to perform regular inspections of all areas in their control and to repair any defects they find in a timely manner. If they do so, there can be no danger of people tripping or injuring themselves and there is no right to claim if you do fall; but this is sadly rarely the case. A defect is generally considered to be an unnecessary change in height of a pavement of footpath of 25mm (1 inch or the height of a 50 pence piece) or 40mm in the case of any roads. 

 

Whilst some people view personal injury claims in a negative light, the fact of the matter is that we all pay money to our local authority in Council Tax and in return, amongst other services, we are owed a duty of care when using the highways and byways of the area. So, when an injury is sustained, which can often cause other losses such as lost earnings, medical expenses and care costs, it is your right to seek the payment of these losses, plus an award for your injuries, from the authority responsible for these injuries. MG Legal, your local accident injury solicitor, are experienced in dealing with this type of claim and regularly make successful claims against various local authorities for those with genuine injuries sustained as a result of incidents that were not their fault.