Walsall MBC v Millard - Matthew White, St John’s Chambers
20/08/14. The winter of 2009-2010 was harsh. Walsall (a highway authority) received many more complaints about the highways than usual. They abandoned their periodic system of inspection of highways and ‘went reactive’, only responding to complaints due to being deluged with problems as a result of the weather. The claimant tripped on a dangerous defect on 27/2/10. The location had been due for its 6-monthly inspection by 17/2/10, but it was not inspected because periodic inspections had been suspended. At first instance the Deputy District Judge had found that the Highway Authority themselves set the standard of what was reasonably required to keep the highway safe by inspecting every 6 months (which, incidentally, was what the national Code of Practice recommended), and could not justify departure from that on the basis of not having enough manpower/resources to continue such inspections through harsh weather because Wilkinson said that insufficient resources was no defence.
On appeal HHJ Gregory overturned that decision. He considered that there is a distinction between cases like Wilkinson v. City of York Council [2011] EWCA Civ 207 in which a...
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