In a landmark ruling, the House of Lords today cleared local authorities of a duty to keep roads free from snow and ice.
Under the provisions of the Highway Act 1980, local authorities are required to “maintain” the highway. However, Lords Hoffmann, Slynn, Steyn, Clyde and Hobhouse today held that their duty of maintenance does not extend to a legal obligation to keep their roads clear of snow and ice.
The test case ruling came in a challenge by East Sussex County Council against an Appeal Court finding that they were liable for an accident in which a motorist was left paralysed. The accident happened on a frosty November morning in 1991, when a vehicle skidded off the A267 at Wellbrook Hill, near Mayfield, and crashed into a bridge.
The motorist, Geoffrey Goodes, sued the council, claiming they were to blame for failing to “maintain” the road by keeping it free of ice.
Gritting lorries were in fact out on the morning of the accident and were not far from the crash scene when the accident happened. Lord Hoffmann said today that although the council were under no legal duty to do so, they did in fact make considerable efforts to keep the roads free from snow and ice.
Lord Clyde said that: “Maintenance certainly includes the work of repair and the taking of measures which will obviate the need to repair to forestall the development of a defect in the road”. Councils were certainly under a legal duty to keep the highway structurally sound, he said, but the question was whether this duty extended to removing ice formed on the surface of the road as a natural consequence of the weather.
“In the use of ordinary use of language, I would not strictly describe the removal of ice from the surface of the road as maintaining the highway,” Lord Clyde said. “The removal of ice may be a maintaining of the use of the highway, or facilitating, or easing, the access which the highway provides, but it is not a maintaining of the highway itself.”
The motorist’s claim was dismissed.
PLS News 15/6/00
