LITTLETON Panell motorist Bridget Green has failed in her attempt to get compensation from Wiltshire County Council after her car was damaged when she drove over a pothole near Potterne.

Miss Green, a former teacher at Dauntsey's School, claimed £200 compensation from the county council after her Peugeot 106 hit a massive pothole on the A360 at Potterne Wick in December last year, bursting a tyre and damaging a wheel.

Despite an initial rebuff from the council's insurance and risk manager Judy Neville, Miss Green swore to continue her fight but has now thrown in the towel.

She said: "It appears that the highways authority holds all the cards.

"They are legally protected, even to a paragraph in the Highways Act 1980 entitled "special defence in action against a highway authority for damages for non-repair of highway."

During her research, Miss Green has discovered that the expenditure on road maintenance has been cut in half between 1993/94 and 2001/02, from £16 million to £8 million.