A MOTORIST from Kenn has branded the state of roads in North Somerset as horrific after her car was damaged by a huge pothole.

Emma Devaney was driving along Yatton High Street when she went through a puddle which turned out to be a deep, 1m-long hole and her car tyre burst.

The 40-year-old has since been left ‘disgusted’ after she was told North Somerset Council would not admit liability for the damage and would not compensate her for it.

Emma, of Davis Lane, said: “I don’t see how you can be a council and receive all the funding for the highways but when something goes wrong then say you are not responsible.

“They have fobbed me off. I think it is disgusting.

“The state of the roads is horrific.

“If a cyclist had hit this pothole it is quite possible they would be dead.”

After reporting the hole to the council immediately after the incident on January 2, Emma was told she would receive a call back from its highways department. She never received a call and had to wait for her husband, Anthony, to cycle from home to help her change the wheel.

The next day she took her Ford Mondeo to a garage and had a new tyre fitted at a cost of �78.

Emma added: “When I went to the garage, two other drivers there said their tyres had burst after running into potholes but they had given up trying to get money out of the council for it.”

In a letter to Emma on March 6, North Somerset Council’s chief executive officer, Graham Turner, explained the authority would not admit liability due to the fact it had kept to the national Well Maintained Highways Guidelines.

He said roads are inspected every month and that Yatton High Street had been inspected on December 14 and after the incident on January 31.

The pothole had also been filled on January 2, after Emma’s report was lodged.