Local council

[Deleted User 728]

Take 'em to the cleaners.

If they're anything like our council, they won't make any repairs to roads or pavements till around about March, running into April.
I've been told that's because they'll then use any spare funds they have in their budget and allocate accordingly, ie major roads first, then B roads and high streets, then posh area residential streets, then pavements in the city, then .. well, then they run out of cash so poorer areas remain in a permanent state of disrepair.

It's to do with ensuring they're allocated as much funding as possible from the government for their next year's budget : if they have anything left they obviously don't need any more, so they ALWAYS spend the lot and this is the perfect way to do that.

[blackpool white]

I'm sorry to put a wet blankett over this. In order to make a claim you would need to prove negligence. It is not enough to prove the paving was uneven and potentially dangerous, if the council did not know about it then it cannot be negligence as it is not reasonable to expect the council to inspect the entire borough's paving.

Further, even if they did know about it, the Council are duty bound to only deal with thoses issues for which they have funds for. It may be that they were spending the funds on more pressing issues, or perhaps it was scheduled to be fixed at a later date that would not then be negligent of them.

[Wigan White]

The council may not be the ones responsible.

My wife tripped over a paving stone in October 2017 and the fall caused a rotator cuff injury and torn tendon, requiring surgery. We contact a solicitor about this, and has been previously advised, we're told to take photos showing measurements.

They contacted the local council who were not liable. It was the shop she fell in front of who have since admitted liability.

[Sovietmule]

My wife was shopping in Nottingham yesterday and fell over a loose paving slab. She now has a black eye and made a mess of the right side of her face. I contacted the city council yesterday morning but still no response, is that normal practise ? I have to say the accident happened outside Boots & a couple of people helped her into the shop where the staff were brilliant with her. I would have thought in this day & age an automated response would be the least I should expect. Thoughts.

Genuinely hope your missus is ok and makes a full recovery.

Hope she is soon fully recoved.

Sadly think all local councils are full of trumped up nobodies and that response is par for the course.
You will need to pester continually to get anything done, always worth writing to the local paper and MP if you hear nothing.

I suppose if you don't have much to do with local authority employees it's easy to rubbish them. Maybe take a second to think differently ... why not think they are mostly decent hard-working folk who try to do their job under difficult circumstances - 30% cut in funding since 2011 - and are often under-staffed and under-resourced.
Maybe consider, too, that the role (person) who had responsibility for handling and investigating the kinds of incident mentioned no longer exists in the authority due to budget cuts ... then that responsibility gets 'passed on' to someone else so they can 'tack it on to their own job' and that could be why there wasn't an immediate response. Just a thought.

Members of my family and some friends are or have been employed at local authorities at various levels. Some have left recently because of the constant mantra "Do more with less". Comes a point when you can't.