OVER 900 local people successfully claimed for road defect damage to their vehicles in the last five years, with hundreds of thousands paid out in recent years.
Local man Mark Ovens, who is running in the upcoming Council elections in place of his outgoing UUP colleague Cllr Alex Baird, has obtained figures showing that since 2018 almost half a million in compensation for damage caused by road defects had been paid out to claimants in the Fermanagh and Omagh area.
Last year alone, 155 local people were successful in their claims, with £118,214.39 paid in compensation.
Mr Ovens said while staff from the Department of Infrastructure’s Roads Service were always busy and hard at work, there was “real frustration with the sheer number of potholes” in many areas and the length of time it was taking to repair them.
“Potholes, especially on Fermanagh’s rural and mostly unlit roads, can present a real hazard to drivers,” he said. “On top of tyre blowouts and damage to vehicles, sometimes the holes can be so big or in such a dangerous position on the road, that they present a safety risk to drivers and their passengers.
“If a person’s property or vehicle has been damaged, or even if they’ve suffered a personal injury after a trip or a fall due to a problem with a road or street, then they can make a claim to the DfI for compensation.”
Mr Ovens said when he asked for figures on the local situation, he found out that in the five years to 2022, 907 or 1,370 claims in the area had been successful, noting the “vast majority” of damage caused had likely come from potholes.
“For far too long there has been a major under-investment in the road network’s maintenance budget. That’s largely been as a direct result of the stop-start nature of a functioning Executive at Stormont, which in turn has failed to agree a multi-year budget at any point in the last eight years,” he said.
“Whilst many of the crews within DfI Roads are working as hard as they can, in reality the Department is failing to stay on top on the sheer number of repairs being reported. As a result, until the DfI have a budget in place that allows it to plan ahead and bring on the necessary staff and resource, I suspect the problem is still only going to get worse.
“In the meantime more drivers are going to experience damaged vehicles and pedestrians are likely to trip on defective footpaths.”
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