THE council spent tens of thousands of pounds in payments for pothole insurance claims last year.

There were 122 successful claims out of 213 made between April 2018 and March of this year, costing the council £63,998.64.

More than a third of this total was spent on four personal injury claims, three of which exceeded £6,000 each.

The highest payouts were for sprains and strains, followed by a foot injury. One claimant received £4,080 for a fracture. Other claims were made for vehicle and property damage.

The council will spend the final third of a £10m long-term investment to fix the borough’s roads this year.

The leading Labour group pledged putting an extra £10m towards highway improvements from 2020.

Environment cabinet member Alan Quinn told the Bury Times that the council put £1m of that investment into road repairs.

But he said the local authority needs more money from central government fix the problem.

He said: "For my 660km of road, I should get six or seven million pounds. I get two. Multiply that by ten years of austerity.

“The aim is to invest to save. At the end of the day, a pothole is only a repair. What we need is the money to have a proper resurfacing programme.

“If our new Prime Minister will fund councils better and gives us more money for the roads, we wouldn’t be paying so much in insurance claims. It’s not just a Bury problem.”

Deputy Conservative leader Nick Jones welcomed the programme of work to fix the roads, but he said more needs to be done.

His party suggested investing £30m into the borough's highways over a 10-year period back in February when councillors agreed a budget.

The Tories said they would borrow money for this investment and pay for the loan mostly by saving half a million pounds on insurance claims over the decade.

He said: "The borough's roads have been neglected for far too long which has in turn cost the authority hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years in compensation claims.

"The authority needs to improve our roads across the borough to bring them back up to an adequate standard."

Lib Dem leader Tim Pickstone described the figures as a "ridiculous" waste of public money.

He claimed that the true amount spent would be even higher when legal costs and staff time taken o deal with the claims are taken into account.

He said: "It is only 18 months since Bury’s ruling Labour group voted against a sensible Liberal Democrat proposal to borrow more money to invest in repairing our roads. We should be spending on road repairs, not compensation as a result of neglect."

In recent months, the council has filled more potholes than the number of those reported – in some weeks ten times as many.

In July alone, the council filled more than 784 potholes. It received an average of 25 reports every week since May 20.