Almost £100,000 is paid out every year in Lincolnshire to people who have been injured tripping over pavements.
Lincolnshire County Council has revealed that on average it pays out £92,000 a year – the single largest payout so far being £38,000. Compared with some of the large metropolitan areas, though, Lincolnshire’s dangerous payment payouts are quite restrained.
According to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Liberal Democrats, Leeds City Council had the dubious honour of paying out the highest amount in compensation – a figure of £10.2 million between 2004 and 2009.
The average payment from the 92 councils who responded to the request was £833,269 over a period of five years. Lincolnshire council paid out almost half of that, just £461,000 over the same period.
The assistant director of the highways department at Lincolnshire County Council, Paul Coathup, said that over the past six years, Lincolnshire County Council had paid out around £100,000 a year in compensation for claims involving trips on the footway, but while the council was not in any way complacent, the amount paid out in personal injury claims was well below the national average. He attributed this to ‘robust inspection and maintenance routines’.
Mr Coathup also acknowledged that as there were around 2,500 miles of footway, and due to the growing compensation culture, this type of claim was unavoidable.
Tean Butcher, an injury solicitor in Lincoln, has acted in cases against Lincolnshire County Council following pavement trips. He said that there may be less of a compensation culture in the county, compared to metropolitan areas – and people were more stoic in thinking they probably weren’t entitled to compensation when in fact they might be.
He also thought that perhaps the pavement quality was better than busier areas where council resources had to be stretched further.
