A YOUNG Middlewich man who crashed into a lamp post after driving through a pothole in Northwich is being threatened to be taken to court by the council.


Elliott Morris, 19, from Mill Lane in Middlewich, was driving with his sister to St Nicholas Catholic School in Hartford in February last year when he went through a pothole on London Road, Northwich.


Elliott’s dad, Mark Morris, suggested to the Cheshire West and Chester Council that he wouldn’t claim for the damage of the car if the council paid for the lamp post.


The council said it would respond to the offer within 90 days but 11 months later Mark received an invoice for the lamp post.


Mark said: “I was waiting for a reply and I had sent four emails asking where it was up to but they didn’t even have the courtesy to respond.”


“My son was only going around 15mph and witnesses have backed that up so to say it was dangerous driving is ridiculous, it was obviously because of the pothole but nobody even listened to that debate.”


“If we had had a discussion about the fault of it and it turned out it wasn’t the pothole then I’d have held my hands up and paid the cost, but the fact that it took 11 months for a reply shows their incompetence is staggering.”


“Now they’re threatening to take us to court and we’ve lost the chance to get medical reports completed and gather the evidence to defend the claim.”


Elliott claims his car veered off the road after the steering stopped working.


Pictures of the car at the scene show the steering arm was snapped.


Mark is now waiting on a copy of the police report but claims the officer who attended the incident agreed it was as a result of the state of the road.


Mark added: “I don’t know what the report states until I receive a copy but the police officer said at the time that he thought the car had suffered a mechanical failure due to the pothole.”