A GWENT council has paid out more than £16,000 over the past three years to motorists for damage to vehicles caused by potholes.

That figure could go up as some claims are still unresolved while a councillor said just a day after submitting a question on the issue he hit a pothole.

“Two of my tyres were blown out and I have landed up with a £500 bill,” said Councillor Tony Kear.

He told colleauges had been returning to his home from an evening event with fellow Conservative councillors when his car was stopped in its tracks by a deep fracture in the surface of a country lane at 11.30pm.

“I didn’t get home until half one and my vehicle wasn’t home until 3.30am and I was without a car for two days,” said the councillor who acknowledged the “slight irony” that he’d submitted a question on potholes ahead of Monmouthshire County Council’s March meeting.

The Usk and Llanbadoc councillor also said a nurse was stranded in the dark “late at night” after hitting a pothole in his ward.

Cllr Kear asked if the council would again consider using the JCB Pothole Pro machine which he said has been used by Labour-run Flintshire council and which he arranged a two-day road trial demonstration of, for the council, in July 2023. The North Wales council said the machinery delivers a longer lasting repair than traditional manual techniques.

When Cllr Kear again raised the possibility of using the specialist machine at the most recent council meeting Cllr Catrin Maby, the Labour cabinet member for highways, told him: “I’m not completely sure it is appropriate for you to be promoting a particular product.”

Cllr Maby said officers had advised her they didn’t believe the issue with solving the council’s pothole problems was around equipment.

She also said potholes which Cllr Kear complained reappear within two or three days after being filled are due to temporary “cold fills” that can be pushed out when heavy traffic passes over them.

The council is establishing a £2 million fund for pothole repairs and Cllr Maby said it intends doing more major work now it has more resources. The same meeting was also told the backlog in highway repairs is £80m.

Cllr Maby also reminded councillors funding isn’t only intended to repair road surfaces but pavements and footpaths and a range of highway repairs.

Following the meeting Cllr Kear said he hasn’t yet submitted a claim to the council in relation to the damage to his car and said of Cllr Maby’s response: “It was amusing as I’m not a commission-based salesman for JCB.”

The opposition councillor said he had been disappointed no councillors from the ruling administration had attended the trial with council staff and he was trying to be proactive.

He said: “I’m not sat on my backside sniping from the sidelines. I’m simply looking at ways to make changes because the quality of the repairs are atrocious.”

Cllr Kear’s original question was how many claims have been submitted by motorists in respect of damage to their vehicles caused by potholes or defects in Monmouthshire’s highways each financial year since May 2022 and how many claims have been paid out.

From May 2022 to April 2023 there were 51 claims with nine paid out totalling £3,724.

In 2023/24 from a total of 98 claims 29 were paid out amounting to £10,689 and so far in the current financial year, that will close at the end of the month, £1,742 has been paid out on nine claims from a total of 51.

Cllr Maby said she’s also looked back at the figures from 2019/20 when £4,902 was paid out on 16 of 71 total claims.