Denbighshire Council has been sued by motorists over 200 times in the last five years because of the poor state of the county’s roads.

As a result of litigation the authority has had to pay put out £8,469 to drivers for the damage caused to their vehicles by pot holes.

The figures released in a Freedom of Information request show that 213 claims were brought by drivers against the council since 2013 because of the poor state of roads in the county, with 28 actions being successful.

And the last financial year has seen the biggest number of claims with 64 actions brought in 2017/18. The previous high was in 2015/16 when the council had to deal with 45 claims, paying out £2,223 as a result.

2013/14 saw the most amount of money paid out when the council shelled out £4,212 to settle claims because of road conditions.

The figures have come out after a report before councillors last month on the performance scrutiny committee warned the authority needed to spend more on road repairs or it could face being sued more in the future.

But the high number of claims did not come as a surprise to Cynwyd/Llandrillo county councillor, Mabon ap Gwynfor, who has been asking for one busy stretch of road in his ward to be repaired for over a year.

He said: “It’s not surprising to see the number of claims on the increase. I’ve had local residents complain that they’ve suffered cracked windscreens, burst tyres, suspension problems and other damage on their cars because of potholes and poor road conditions. We really need more money to be made available to improve our road network.”

If a car is damaged by a pothole then the owner has the right to claim for repairs against the authority responsible. In Wales most large trunk roads or A roads are the responsibility of the Welsh Government with other routes falling under county councils.

But making a claim can be difficult, advice from the AA states that the council needs to have been aware there is a problem with the road before the damage was caused.

Information published on the AA website said: ” Although you might be able to claim for the cost of any repairs, it’s important to understand that the relevant highway authority does have a statutory defence. They can’t be held responsible for a pothole they didn’t know about, either because it hadn’t been reported to them, or because it wasn’t picked up by them during their regular checks.”

The number of successful complaints since 2013 dropped from 13 to just one in 2016/17 which was something the council has worked to reduce.

A spokesman for Denbighshire Council said: “The main reason is that our systems are continually improving to ensure they are robust enough to enable us to challenge claims.”