POT-LUCK
I’m furious over £700 pothole damage – I’ve spent months ‘banging my head against the wall’ to find out who’s to blame
A DRIVER has been left "banging her head against the wall" amid a months-long hunt for the person responsible for £700 of pothole damage to her car.
Joanna Mattick claims that she has been passed from company to company as she seeks compensation.
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Jonna, from Maidstone, Kent, allegedly suffered a tyre "blowout" after hitting a pothole on the A249 while in the car with her partner.
She told : "It was bone-shaking and you felt the jolt right in your belly.
"We immediately knew we'd got a blowout due to the impact.
"I saw a look of anguish on his face when we knew we hit it."
Fortunately, the pair were only driving at 50mph due to roadworks, so managed to keep control of the motor after the impact.
However, Jonna claims that the Nissan Qashqai was badly damaged, with the front wheel needing to be replaced and the passenger-side bumper popping out - leading to a repair bill of £700.
This apparently left them stranded on the road for around two hours as they waited for a recovery truck.
Not only that, but Joanna also suggests that the smash may have prompted deeper issues, costing her a further £500.
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She added: "I can't guarantee that subsequent problems with my car... aren't attributed to the intense jolt that we went through.
"Because I didn't have any issues before then.
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"Now I'm in and out of the garage like a jack-in-the-box."
The disgruntled driver reported the pothole to National Highways but claims that she was told that it was not the agency's responsibility.
Instead, she was apparently directed to a limited company based in Edinburgh which operated the road through a DBFO scheme.
Design-Build-Finance-Operate (DBFO) is a system created by National Highways in the '90s under which private firms are assigned roads to build and maintain out of their own pockets.
Jonna claims she was then contacted by a representative from FM Conway, the civil engineering contractor working with the DBFO firm, who acknowledged her claim but denied responsibility.
They then allegedly passed her on to GRAHAM, a construction company working on the nearby Stockbury flyover on the same road, but Jonna claims she has yet to receive a response from them.
She fumed: "I'm not baying for blood, but it's just like banging my head against a brick wall.
"I'm getting to the stage now where no answer is not good enough.
"Someone has to accept responsibility."
A spokesperson for National Highways said: "We apologise for the time taken to deal with the claim and the subsequent confusion around who will be handling it.
"In this instance, we have failed to deliver the high customer service standards that we set ourselves.
"The claim is currently going through an internal process and apologise that this has not been adequately communicated in this case.
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"I can reassure the claimant that we will be in touch regarding her claim in due course"
FM Conway and GRAHAM have been contacted for comment.
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