My good friend has an elderly mother who recently moved to Wilmslow.

She settled into her new home quite well until she had a nasty accident. While walking along the pavement to the shops she tripped over a raised flagstone and fell rather badly.

Her injuries were somewhat complicated and she sought treatment from a private practitioner.

Her son visited the location of the accident, took photographs of the raised flagstones, obtained professional documented evidence of her injuries and pursued compensation via Cheshire East Council.

The response was that as the pavement had been inspected, checked and reported as being in good order three months before the incident they would not accept any claim.

A regular reader of this newspaper wrote to me recently to say he’d had an accident as a result of driving into an unusually deep pothole.

He also produced pictures of the pothole and the damages to his vehicle and told Cheshire East he would accept payment for a new tyre.

I think you can guess the response.

Yes, by some extraordinary coincidence that precise point on the road had been examined three months earlier and was found to be undamaged therefore his claim was also rejected.

Now, I know it’s not easy to ascertain the veracity of each and every claim made against the council for defective roads and pavements but my admiration for the inspectors in these incidents knows no bounds.

For them to know three months in advance of the precise location of both these incidents and document the condition of the surfaces is sheer genius.

If they could let me have the winner of next week’s 3.30pm at Haydock I would be eternally grateful.

Oh yes and a few Lottery numbers wouldn’t go amiss.

By columnist Vic Barlow