I cannot get the Council to salt the pavement outside my home, leaving it slippery and dangerous. Would there be a compensation claim against the Council if someone slipped and hurt themselves?
Your Council, or for bigger roads, the Highways Agency, have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to maintain the highway. In times of snow and ice, that duty, realistically, will be limited to gritting the busier local roads and is unlikely to extend to pavements. The difficulty is that the Highway Authority need only take "reasonable steps". Bad weather of this type would usually be a problem for just a few days only and in most cases we think that the Courts would accept that it is unreasonable to extend the Highway Authority's legal duties to a general duty to salt or grit footpaths.
If you have complained to the Council, you may be in a stronger position. If the footpath remains in a hazardous state for very many days and someone then falls over on it there is an argument that the Council ought reasonably to have responded to the complaint.
In most cases however, a Council will not be legally liable for a failure to clear ice or snow from local footpaths.
For more information contact Jacobs & Reeves http://www.jacobsreeves.co.uk
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