A motorist whose car was damaged after hitting a pothole has accused a council of ‘total incompetence’ over dealing with her claim.

Jackie Clark, who lives in Letchworth, was driving along Willian Road in February when her car hit a pothole.

The collision caused one of her tyres to burst and Mrs Clark has since tried to claim £585 for the repairs and time she had to take off work to fix the car.

She applied to Herts County Council to pay for the damage but had her claim rejected.

On appealing this decision she discovered that the council was not liable because the damage to the road had been caused by lorries travelling to do work at Letchworth Golf Club.

This meant that the developer, Woodlands Environmental Ltd, is liable under Section 278 of the planning application.

Mrs Clark, who is still waiting to hear if her compensation claim has been successful, said: “It’s been a long fought about battle to even find out the right person to appeal to and the council has been totally incompetent in trying to helping me.

“They only let me now about Section 278 order after I appealed which slowed the process considerably.”

Mrs Clark submitted a request to the county council under the Freedom of Information Act in a bid to find out how many other motorists had been affected, with 40 incidents reported in just over two months.

She added: “I’m a determined person but lots of people would have ended up paying for the damage themselves which is not acceptable.

“There has been loads of damage caused to cars along this road and I want the people affected to know who is responsible.”

A spokesman for HCC said: “We are sorry that this resident is unhappy. We aim to deal with each compensation claim as quickly as possible and on its individual merits. We can’t comment on claims that are made against a third party.”

The Comet contacted Woodlands Environmental but had not received a response at the time of going to press.