Claiming for Pothole Damage in 2026, The Evidence That Wins, and Section 58 That Loses

UK councils paid out roughly £11.5 million in pothole compensation in the last full reporting year, but the success rate on claims sits stubbornly below one in three. The damage itself is rarely the deciding factor. What tends to determine the outcome is whether the driver can show, in writing, that the council either knew about the pothole or had failed to maintain a reasonable inspection regime on that road. Without that, most claims fall on the statutory defence in Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980 long before they reach the question of repair costs.

What Section 58 actually means for a claim

Highway authorities have a statutory defence under Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980. If the authority can show, on the balance of probabilities, that a reasonable system of inspection and maintenance was in place for the road in question, it will generally not be liable for damage caused by a defect, even where the damage is substantial. This is why the first useful step after a pothole strike is rarely a phone call to an insurer. It is the gathering of evidence that will, later, make the Section 58 defence harder to sustain.

The evidence that tends to hold up

• Photographs of the pothole with a recognisable object, a shoe, a coin, a tape measure, for scale. Depth is the figure councils take most seriously; defects above around 40mm are generally treated as actionable under most authorities' inspection standards.
• A precise location: a what3words address, or a screenshot of the map with a dropped pin, alongside the road name and the nearest house number or junction.
• The date and time of the incident.
• Photographs of the damage to the vehicle, taken at the scene wherever it is safe to do so.
• A FixMyStreet report submitted the same day. This creates an independent, time-stamped public record of the defect that is hard for the council to argue it could not have known about.

Insurance route or council route

Going through comprehensive insurance tends to resolve faster but typically costs the no-claims discount and the excess. For damage of a few hundred pounds, claiming directly from the council is often the more sensible route, even where it takes several weeks. For more serious damage to suspension or steering, the practical approach is usually to claim through the insurer and let them recover the cost from the council afterwards.

The Freedom of Information request that often shifts the outcome

Where a council rejects a claim citing Section 58, a Freedom of Information request can be a useful next step. The questions worth asking are typically: (a) the inspection schedule for the relevant road, (b) the date of the most recent inspection before the incident, and (c) any reports of defects on that stretch in the preceding six months. If the road was missed, or the defect had been reported and not acted on within the council's own stated timescales, the Section 58 defence is harder to maintain.

Pothole claims in the UK are, in practice, less about damage and more about documentation. The drivers whose claims tend to succeed are the ones who treat the first ten minutes after a strike as careful evidence-gathering rather than a frustrating inconvenience. Keeping every receipt and report attached to the vehicle in one place means the documentation is available when it is needed, rather than being reconstructed from memory months later.

References: Highways Act 1980, Section 58, gov.uk pothole reporting guidance, FixMyStreet.com, AA Pothole Index.