A COUNCIL ordered to pay damages to a Cwm-bran man who fell through a defective manhole cover failed in its test case bid to overturn the award.

Torfaen council and water company Hyder Group - the owner of the manhole cover - must now pay Alun Walton, 54, almost £4,000 damages between them, along with thousands of pounds in legal costs.

Mr Walton, of Leicester Drive, Greenmeadow, Cwm-bran, suffered a serious fracture of his right leg in October 1998 when he stepped on the manhole on a grass verge outside the Croesyceiliog Cricket and Rugby Club.

The cover and its frame tipped and Mr Walton fell in.

He was later awarded £3,911.14 damages - to be split equally between Hyder and the council - by a district judge and that decision was upheld by Judge Price at Cardiff county court in February.

Torfaen council went to London's Appeal Court in a bid to reverse the decision, saying it feared the ruling could spark an avalanche of compensation claims aimed at local authorities countrywide.

The council is responsible for 77,000 pieces of metal work on local highways and claimed it is impossible to physically inspect every one of them regularly.

Lady Justice Hale, sitting with Lord Justice Thorpe, refused to grant the council leave to appeal against the district judge's ruling that it had breached its statutory duty.

For the council, Robert O'Leary told the court that the authority operated an inspection system which met the Code of Good Practice for highway authorities.

'Drive-by' inspections in slow-moving vehicles were carried out every three months and the last such inspection of the offending manhole cover was only three weeks before Mr Walton's accident, he said.

Mr O'Leary said: "If manholes must be physically tested, should each and every paving slab be individually tested in case one of them rocks?"

Refusing leave to appeal, Lady Justice Hale said the case had not set out any broad-ranging principles on the maintenance duties of highway authorities.

A council spokesman told the Argus: "We will abide by the court's decision."