What Should We Do About The Snow? Advice From Cheltenham Solicitors
We cannot stop it falling, but once it settles, should we clear it from our paths, and public pavements? In most situations, the answer is ‘yes’.
The law says that you must take reasonable steps to make sure that visitors to your property are safe. You should therefore try and make your paths safer if you can. If you do this, you have an answer to any claim against you.
With a public pavement, you do not have to clear this, but it is public spirited to do so. So long as you behave sensibly this should not be a problem, so don’t for example pour boiling water on the path which can then freeze and make things worse!
Judges know that “health and safety issues” are used as an excuse for being lazy, and if you are doing your best to be helpful to others, it is unlikely that you will be criticised.
If you have house insurance, then if a personal injury claim is made against you, you simply pass this on to your insurers to deal with – that is what you pay your premiums for.
As The Times said recently ‘The health and safety monster does exist, in the minds of jobsworths, lazybones and buck passers, not in the law. That is the main thing we have learned from the snow’.
