Why aren’t the roads and pavements gritted like they used to be?
Why aren’t the roads and pavements gritted like they
used to be?
08 I 01 I 10
This is a question people
have been asking frequently as Britain continues to endure one of
the harshest winters in decades.
Hospitals report that the
number of fractures caused by slips on icy roads and pavements have
increased dramatically and businesses are suffering because staff
can’t get in to work.
‘Aren’t the councils
liable if you are injured having fallen on snow and ice?’ That’s
the follow up question we lawyers seem to be getting asked more and
more.
As far as the law is
concerned, the Highways Act 1980 imposes a duty on the highway
authority (which will often be the local council authority) to
maintain roads and footpaths (the highway). Moreover the Act
expressly provides that a highway authority is under a duty to
ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that safe passage
along a highway is not endangered by snow and ice.
However a local highway
authority cannot be expected to ensure that every road and footpath
for which it is responsible is entirely free of snow and ice. That
would be an impossible challenge. As Lord Denning said more than
thirty years ago, ‘a highway authority would require an army of men
stationed at innumerable posts and moving forward in formation
whenever there was a severe frost’.
That’s not to say highway
authorities can simply do nothing where snow and ice are concerned.
Highway authorities have to do what is reasonably practicable in
the circumstances. Doing nothing is therefore not an option; but at
the other extreme neither is clearing every square metre of snow or
ice. What is reasonably practicable will lie somewhere in between
and would ultimately fall to be determined by a Judge on the facts
presented at court and after judicial assessment of the highway
authority’s winter maintenance plan and the execution of that plan
in the circumstances it came to be applied.
It seems that in light of
a successful appeal to the House of Lords more than ten years ago,
the appeal being made by a highway authority which had originally
been held liable to a claimant who was gravely injured when his car
skidded on ice and crashed into a bridge, highway authorities
reviewed their winter maintenance programmes. With the landmark
decision emphasising that highways authorities were not under an
absolute duty to keep all roads and footpaths free from all ice and
snow and mindful of tight budgets and the need to divert funds to
competing priorities, it is perhaps more than coincidence that
roads and footpaths that were previously gritted when snow
and ice threatened no longer are.
Ultimately if gritting
your road isn’t catered for in the local authority winter
maintenance plan (even though the road around the corner is) and
that plan is considered to be reasonable it is going to be
difficult if not impossible to persuade a Court that the council
should have gritted your road and that because they didn’t they are
liable to you where you suffered injury after falling on ice.
It is a mater of
conjecture as to whether all this contributes to spikes in
admissions to fracture clinics, or to schools, businesses and other
infrastructure being unable to function properly or at all during
cold weather spells. However, that our roads and footpaths don’t
appear to be getting gritted like they used to seems to be
something politicians will have to address given the wider impact
that severe winter weather has had in recent years.
The legal position is a
little different where accidents at workplaces caused by a failure
to treat snow or ice are concerned or where those accidents arise
on occupied land. The Highways Act would have no application in
those cases. Reasonable practicability is again at play, but
frequently claims arising from injuries suffered because of a
failure to treat snow or ice at workplaces, business premises or on
private or publicly owned land succeed where the employer or
occupier fails to take such steps as might reasonably be expected
of the employer or occupier to take in order to avoid employees or
visitors suffering injury while on the land or those premises.
Doing nothing is unlikely to be sufficient.
If you have been injured
after slipping on snow or ice and would like to discuss whether you
might have a claim for compensation with one of our solicitors call
us on 02920 224871.
For more information contact:
Contact
Jonathan Rees
Partner
Head of Volume Personal Injury
E jonathan.rees@hughjames.com
T 029 2022 4871