Article 11 Construction and maintenance of altered or diverted streets
Where a street is altered or diverted under this Order, or is reinstated following its temporary diversion, the altered, diverted or reinstated part of the street shall, when completed to the reasonable satisfaction of the street authority, unless otherwise agreed, be maintained by and at the expense of the Company for a period of 12 months from its completion and at the expiry of that period by and at the expense of the street authority.
In any action against the Company in respect of loss or damage resulting from any failure by it to maintain a street under this article, it is a defence (without prejudice to any other defence or the application of the law relating to contributory negligence) to prove that the Company had taken such care as in all the circumstances was reasonably required to secure that the part of the street to which the action relates was not dangerous to traffic.
For the purposes of a defence under paragraph (2), the court shall in particular have regard to the following matters—
the character of the street and the traffic which was reasonably to be expected to use it;
the standard of maintenance appropriate for a street of that character and used by such traffic;
the state of repair in which a reasonable person would have expected to find the street;
whether the Company knew, or could reasonably have been expected to know, that the condition of the part of the street to which the action relates was likely to cause danger to users of the street; and
where the Company could not reasonably have been expected to repair that part of the street before the cause of action arose, what warning notices of its condition had been displayed,
but for the purposes of such a defence it is not relevant that the Company had arranged for a competent person to carry out or supervise the maintenance of that part of the street to which the action relates unless it is also proved that the Company had given the competent person proper instructions with regard to the maintenance of the street and that the competent person had carried out those instructions.