Bungay businessman’s battle for tyre compensation

A south Norfolk man who runs two independent businesses has spoken of his anger after waiting more than four months to receive compensation for damage caused to his van.

Craig Trickett of Earsham, who owns Trickett and Sons greengrocers and Bairds Butchers both in Bungay, had to pay £700 to have four new tyres put on his van after Norfolk County Council carried out repairs to the A143 at Earsham. Mr Trickett was driving along the road, which had been newly resurfaced, on June 10, when he noticed his van started to shake.

He said: “All the tar was coming off the road and filling my tyres with tar and stones. I had no thread left at all, it was lethal. I had to drive slowly because my van was shaking so much.

“It was a really hot day and they shouldn’t have done it.

“I managed to clean the underneath of my van but I had to have new tyres.”

Mr Trickett contacted Norfolk County Council about the issue and was passed on to Lafarge Tarmac, who are contracted by the council for resurfacing work. He was then passed to Kier, who are sub-contracted by Larfarge to carry out the work. He received various letters over the months saying the incident was being investigated, but has only now received a final response.

He said: “I run two small businesses and I’m trying to pay my way but things like this make it really hard.

“I’ve been calling them and calling them. It is disgusting how long I have had to wait.” Mr Trickett has now received a letter from Kier stating that they will reimburse him for the full amount. However he is still waiting to receive the money.

A spokesman from Norfolk County Council, which authorised the work, said: “We were sorry to hear about the problems experienced by Mr Trickett, and when we received the claim we passed it to our main contractors to look into, and understand that the claim has now been settled by them.

“As it’s unusual for a problem like this to take so long to be followed-up, we are looking at this case and talking with our contractors to make sure other people don’t experience the same delays in the future.

“Generally speaking newly surface dressed roads can occasionally be affected by hot summer weather but more usually problems can be caused by vehicles travelling too fast along a newly laid section of road. In this case on the A143 some areas of newly laid stone were lost in the wheel tracks, so to repair this these areas were retreated. Overall this year we have only had to carry out remedial work in a couple of locations of the over 1,200 sites treated.”