POTHOLE compensation claims cost Lancashire County Council £1.18million in the last financial year Burnley MP Julie Cooper has discovered.

She prised the figure out of the authority through a Freedom of Information request.

Labour health spokeswoman Mrs Cooper said: "These shocking statistics tell us the true story behind the appalling state of the roads in Burnley and Padiham and across Lancashire."

She blamed the current Conservative administration at County Hall for the disrepair but Pendle Tory MP Andrew Stephenson said the previous Labour leadership of the county council were responsible

Residents of Padiham and local councillor Alan Hosker are currently up in arms over delays in repairing a foot deep pothole in the middle of a town centre street.

Buffy Fletcher, 44, said: "This is a bad accident waiting to happen".

Mrs Cooper was told in answer to her FoI that the total amount of money spent in the 2017/2018 financial year on personal injury claims as a result of highway and pavement disrepair was £1,066,268.35 while the figure for vehicular damage compensation was £118,571.26.

This totalled £1,184,839.61.

Figures obtained by the Lancashire Telegraph showed total compensation claims in 20115/2016 were £1,210,442 and 2016/2017 were £2,220,845.

They county council is responsible for roads in 12 boroughs including Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale, Hyndburn, and Ribble Valley. It does not include Blackburn with Darwen.

Mrs Cooper said:“ A Tory-led County Council who because of their failure to carry out adequate routine road maintenance, are now facing up to the financial consequences and paying out huge sums of taxpayers’ money to the residents and road users who have the misfortune to suffer as a consequence.

"This is a clear picture of total incompetence; short-sighted polices, cutting corners and dereliction of duty.

"Anyone driving around Burnley and Padiham will still be able to see potholes awaiting repair so clearly the payouts are not finished yet.”

Mr Stephenson said: "I think Lancashire County Council has an appalling record on repairing roads and potholes but that is the responsibility of the previous Labour administration.

"It is not trying to clear the backlog and using the latest technology to do so.

"Motorists would prefer to see their money spent on repairing potholes not compensation,"

The authority is renting six machines which use a jet-powered patching technique to fill 60 holes a day.

Cllr Hosker, UKIP county councillor for Padiham and Burnley West is furious at the delays in repairing the large pothole on Ightenhill Street pothole.

Work on the cavity, coned off for safety reasons, on the junctions with A671 Burnley Road and Clitheroe Road, is scheduled for August 6 to August 20.

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: "We initially filled in this depression in the road believing it to be a pothole, however it has since sunk further indicating a wider problem and we visited the site on Saturday.

"The road will need to be closed in order to carry out further investigations, and our drainage team will visit the site as soon as possible."

Cllr Hosker said: "It was a shabby job and a mess.

"I am shocked at the £1milliona year cost of compensation.

"It would be better to spend the money on the roads in the first place,"

Mrs Fletcher said: "This hole is dangerous as it’s more or less in the middle of the road."

Claims up to £1million against the county council are paid from a special compensation fund and larger ones dealt with by its insurers.

A county council spokesman said: "The amount of compensation paid out for legal claims relating to the condition of our roads fluctuates but has reduced quite significantly from around 10 years ago.

"The amount paid out in 2017/18 was less than in either of the previous two years.

"We have put more money into the budget to repair potholes over the next year in recognition of the damage caused to our roads by a colder and wetter than average winter."