[Heorot]

ophic, the rules are that a council should have an inspection system in place and that any potholes found are recorded and acted upon within a time frame appropriate to the class of road. A roads very quickly and C or unclassified roads longer. All these rules are set in stone and if a council doesn't have such a scheme in place, it really can't defend any PL claims. Potholes reported by the public go into the same database. Also in the rules is a definition of how deep a pothole or defect has to be to be classified as such. I can't remember offhand how deep a pothole has to be to be repaired but I think it was 70mm for roads and less for pavements. The council I worked for had a scheme in place and was able to reject over 70% of PL pothole claims and won most of the few that went to court.