What the law requires
A local authority owes the ordinary occupier's duty on land it controls, and a separate statutory duty to maintain the highway. In both cases it has a defence available if it can show a reasonable system of inspection and repair that was actually operated.
That is why these claims are decided on the council's own documents. The defect establishes the hazard; the inspection history decides responsibility for it.
What decides a claim like this
Liability is established on records far more often than on recollection. In this kind of claim the documents that matter most are:
- The inspection frequency set by the council's own policy for that location.
- The date of the last inspection before your accident, and what it recorded.
- Whether the defect had been reported previously, by anyone.
- The intervention level the council applies — the size at which it treats a defect as requiring repair.
What to do now
The evidence that decides these claims has a short life. If the accident was recent:
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1
Report it to whoever runs the place Ask for the incident number or a copy of the report. Occupiers are not obliged to give you one, but a request on record is useful.
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2
Photograph the hazard immediately The defect will be repaired, cleaned or signed within days, and once it is gone it is very hard to prove.
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3
Measure it if you safely can Depth and size decide highway and building-regulation claims. A coin or a shoe in frame gives scale.
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4
Get the injury recorded A&E, a minor injuries unit or your GP. The date on that record matters.
How long you have to claim
The general limitation period for a personal injury claim is three years from the date of the accident, or from the date you first knew the injury was significant and attributable to someone else. If you were under 18 at the time, the three years runs from your eighteenth birthday. Where the injured person lacks mental capacity, time may not run at all.\n\nThe practical deadline is shorter than the legal one. CCTV is overwritten, defects are repaired and records are archived, so a claim started early is almost always a stronger claim.
How we work
We assess the claim, obtain the records that decide it, instruct an independent medical expert and deal with the insurer throughout. Personal injury claims of this kind are run on a No Win, No Fee agreement: there is nothing to pay upfront, and nothing to pay us for our work if the claim does not succeed. A success fee is deducted from the compensation if it does, and we set that out in writing before you commit to anything.