Council refusing to pay out after giant pothole allegedly caused £2,000 worth of damage to motorbike in Northumberland

Dennis Hogg and his son Billy were riding their bikes on the B6353 between the villages of Fenwick and Lowick on August 6 when Billy hit the pothole. The impact caused his bike to leap into the air, but fortunately the experienced biker was able to stay in the saddle.

However, according to Dennis, the incident caused both wheels of the rare limited edition BMW Boxer Cup bike to buckle. Combined with tests to make sure the bike is still safe to ride, and the total cost of hitting the pothole was almost £2,000.

The incident has been reported to Northumberland County Council which says it had ‘complied with statutory duties’ and inspected the road before the incident happened, and the authority said it will not pay for the damage.

Dennis, from Seaton Burn, said: “We could easily be dealing with a serious injury or a fatality. It could have been a lot worse.

“They’ve said they’re not liable because they inspected the road on July 13. Locals have said it was an accident waiting to happen.

“Billy is 28 and he’s been riding bikes since he was 18. He’s lucky he was experienced – I think the vast majority of people would have come off.”

Dennis clams that the council should pay for the repairs to Billy’s bike – and has called on the authority to repair the damaged road properly.

The county council confirmed it would not be reimbursing Mr Hogg for the damages.

A spokesman said: “While we are sorry to learn of damage to anyone’s vehicle, we are satisfied we have complied with our statutory duties in this case and are therefore unfortunately not in a position to reimburse the cost of repair. We regularly inspect all our roads and identify defects for repair, in line with national codes of practice.

“All defects present on this stretch of road at the time of the pre-accident inspection were identified and repaired before the incident involving this bike. This pothole had not been reported to the council between its last inspection and the damage caused to the bike.”