Moray Council have extracted an apology from a motoring watchdog after publishing figures that erroneously claimed they had paid out more in damage claims by motorists than any other local authority.
The RAC made the claim in a press release that sought to highlight the level of insurance claims won against councils for damage caused by potholes.
In their story – which was published by several national newspapers – the RAC had said that Freedom of Information figures they received had shown that Moray Council had paid out more in compensations claims than any other Scottish local authority.
However, the opposite was true – as reported by insideMoray on December 29, Moray actually led the way in Scotland having taken positive steps several years ago to minimise the number of potholes in the region.
In fact Moray had paid out only £905 over the last five years – the lowest of any authority in Scotland and well below the £43,000 paid out in neighbouring Aberdeenshire.
In an apology to Moray Council the RAC blamed a ‘transcribing error’ as the reason they provided incorrect information in their press release and subsequently corrected that error on their own website.
A Moray Council spokesman said: “Moray Council area roads are not immune to pothole problems but consistently in the top three in independent condition surveys
“It is disappointing that the RAC can make such an error, and one has to wonder how accurate the rest of the number-crunching was.
“Our residents will have gained a false picture of how we and our insurers deal with compensation claims, which we are glad to be able to put right.”