![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.autotrade.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Pothole-Picture-copy-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nClose to \u00a3500,000 has been paid out in Northern Ireland as compensation to drivers of vehicles damaged by potholes in the\u00a0last two years. That’s according to figures from their Department for Infrastructure (DfI).<\/p>\n
Over 1,900 vehicle damage claims led to compensation payments of \u00a3495,358, between January\u00a02016 and last November (2017).<\/p>\n
SDLP Roads spokesperson Sinead Bradley MLA said: “As maintenance budgets fall in the absence of\u00a0Ministerial guidance, compensation claims are through the roof, bleeding resources that could be\u00a0invested in infrastructure upgrades.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“The Department for Infrastructure has told me that they are now operating on a reduced maintenance\u00a0service. What this means in practice for road users is that the depth for repairing potholes on roads with\u00a0a lower traffic flow has doubled to 4 inches. That means cars will have to navigate ankle deep craters\u00a0before anything is done about it.<\/p>\n
“There’s a real issue of road safety here. If something isn\u2019t done, the potholes will get bigger and the\u00a0compensation claims will increase. There needs to be direct Ministerial guidance that can only be\u00a0provided by a functioning government.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the Alliance MLA, Kellie Armstrong claims that rural roads in particular have been identified as being at risk.<\/p>\n
She said: “Unfortunately, with the projections for budgets being as they are, instead of seeing\u00a0the multi-million-pound investment in our roads which is needed, we will be lucky if we get a\u00a0fraction of that. This\u00a0is a consequence of protecting health and education among other areas,\u00a0as well as having different\u00a0priorities from the block grant.<\/p>\n
“There has been talk of turning off all the street lights in a few years because there we simply\u00a0won’t be\u00a0able to afford to keep them on. So if that is the case, unfortunately most rural roads\u00a0can be forgotten\u00a0about, as main trunk roads and urban to urban roads will then be\u00a0prioritised.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Close to \u00a3500,000 has been paid out in Northern Ireland as compensation to drivers of vehicles damaged by potholes in the\u00a0last two years. That’s according<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":36473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1001,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-news","category-news","cat-1001-id","cat-1-id","has_thumb"],"yoast_head":"\n