How to force your municipality to fix potholes and get compensation: Mr Pothole, who completed 10,000, reveals his secrets

Mr. Pothole stands over the crater and shakes his head.

This unyielding figure holds a measuring tape engraved with “Best Ever Grandad” in one hand and a 60-inch spirit level in the other – a weapon he calls “my sword of truth.”

Crouching over the hole, he takes careful length and width measurements before balancing the spirit level over the rut to record the depth. After recording these vital statistics, he pulls out a smartphone to take photos as if he were a forensic science expert at a gruesome crime scene.

“The secret to success is being a pain in the back,” says Mr Pothole – whose real name is Mark Morrell.

The 63-year-old retired gas engineer, who lives in Brackley, Northamptonshire, has earned his nickname as Britain’s most successful person at repairing potholes – having filled 10,000 of them in the past decade.

And he’s agreed to share his top tips with me – both for getting your council to fix potholes and for getting compensation.

He says: ‘Start by recording the details of a pothole, so make sure you always have measuring tools in the car. But to win your fight for justice you have to be persistent – ​​and get a grip on the municipality’s repair policy.’

Normally a hole should be at least the depth of a golf ball to be secured – 4cm. But councils are confusing the situation by offering different sizes for what constitutes a pothole, with some specifying at least 5cm and 30cm wide.

The crater we reviewed is on the edge of Marston St Lawrence, a Northamptonshire village and home to Geri Halliwell and her Formula 1 boss, Christian Horner. We are four miles northwest of his birthplace Brackley.

Morrell is also a former mayor and tells me: ‘We have fewer potholes than any other city in Britain because I never left my council alone.’

With a depth of 12 cm, a width of 18 cm and a length of 260 cm, our crater can cause serious damage to a car.

He says, ‘I will report this hole immediately. But at the same time I have to check the local government’s so-called ‘intervention criteria’: how often the municipality checks a stretch of road and when it needs to be repaired after a reported pothole.

“You often have to be an investigator and file a Freedom of Information request to smoke out this information if they won’t tell you or the information can’t be found on the council’s website.”

Under section 41 of the Highways Act 1980, highways agencies and local authorities must ensure that roads are ‘maintained in such a state of repair as to make them reasonably passable… without danger caused by their physical condition’. This includes dangerous potholes.

But in Section 58 of the same law, authorities try to avoid having to pay for repairs or costs if your car is damaged by claiming they have taken reasonable steps to check the roads for potholes.

Municipalities often hide behind the excuse that it can take up to 26 weeks between submitting a report and repairing it. But if they fail to provide evidence that they are carrying out adequate road checks at all – as often as every week on motorways and once a year on secondary roads – they have a case to answer. Morrell says: ‘It is of course not only about road safety, but also about the costs for the motorist.

‘So if you go to the garage for repairs, make sure that the mechanic records in writing that the damage was caused by the hole. You hand over this dated itemized bill to the municipality.’

Potholes are caused by water seeping into the road surface and then freezing in the holes, with the expanding ice further destroying the asphalt. On dark, wet roads after dark, craters are often disguised as puddles.

Potholes in the road surface also cause traffic chaos. Two weeks ago a ‘massive’ pothole paralyzed 20 cars on the M4 motorway, while last week a new crater caused carnage on the M25, sweeping away 58 cars and leaving motorists stranded for hours.

According to the Center of Economics and Business Research, there are now more than 1 million such potholes across Britain, costing the economy £14.4 billion a year in traffic problems and repairs to vehicles and roads.

Simon Williams, from the automotive charity RAC, says damage to cars caused by potholes typically costs £460 to repair. He says: ‘At this time of year reports of broken shock absorbers, suspension springs, damaged alloy wheels and of course flat tires are increasing.’

The number of reports to the RAC due to pothole damage – not including flat tires – had increased by a third to almost 30,000 in 2023 compared to the previous year. The motorists’ organization fears that this figure could rise even further this winter.

Morrell says: ‘A lack of funding is a common excuse used by councils – but there is also a clear lack of common sense. The municipality made markers around the crater that we measured three months ago, but nothing has been done. If it is reported, many gaps can be filled.”

Morrell is encouraging drivers to also sign up for a free smartphone app called Stan (Safer Travel Around Neighborhoods) to encourage municipalities to close gaps. This provides details of road defects. So far, a seventh of the country has been mapped using this app, but motorists can help by signing up with Stan, placing their phone on the windshield so they’re looking at the road and recording a travel video that can be downloaded to the app.

Morrell hopes that if enough information is provided, local authorities will soon be forced to take note of the findings – and fill in more gaps.

Research by comparison website Confused.com has shown that 4.4 million claims were made by motorists to councils for pothole-related incidents last year – an increase of 6 percent compared to 2020.

But local governments are becoming increasingly mean in paying out compensation. They handed over £3.3m in 2023, which is less than the £3.8m paid out in 2020.

Mr Pothole’s guide to getting compensation:

• Take close-up photos of the pothole with a tape measure and note its position on the road, signs and vehicle damage. Take the time, weather and traffic conditions into account. A sketch of the area – or a downloaded map – also helps.

• Find out who is responsible. National Highways is a response to motorways and major ‘A’ trunk roads in England and Wales. Map details are available at nationalhighways.co.uk. In Scotland, Traffic is Scotland. For smaller A-roads and lanes, this is your municipality. Ask the company to send you a claim form or download one from the website.

• Ask a local mechanic to put it in writing that he or she believes the damage was caused by a pothole – and include this in any repair invoice, which should be itemized and dated.

• If a claim is denied, don’t give up. Under section 41 of the Highways Act 1980, highways and local authorities must ensure that roads are properly maintained. Under Article 58 of this law, the authorities try to avoid paying by claiming that they have taken reasonable steps to check the roads for potholes. The best way to address this is to prove that a road is not properly maintained. If the council does not respond, submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. Ask for an inspection log showing how well the road is maintained, exactly how it is inspected, and what the repair policy is.

• Go through the FOI reaction with a fine-toothed comb. Were the inspections carried out on foot or by van, at what speed were they driven and how often were patrols carried out? If a pothole has already been reported, how does the authority categorize it as a risk, how long did it take to repair and why have no repairs been made? Please check this against your own policy. If there are discrepancies, you have a case.

• If you have gone through this entire process and the claim is still denied, you may want to consider going to small claims court. But bear in mind that it will initially cost you £50 to claim £500.