NORTH-EAST council chiefs have launched a fightback against the rising tide of compensation claims.

The problem has been growing steadily in recent years, with claims for injuries from broken and damaged pavements running into millions of pounds for some councils.

A rise in claims has been prompted by the increasing popularity of no-win no-fee legal firms willing to take on cases.

Local authorities are taking a tougher stance with claimants and say they are more willing to go to court over claims.

Some councils have also boosted spending on roads and pavements to try to reduce the number of claims.

Bob Chamberlain, risk and insurance manager at Middlesbrough Council, said: "We are taking a robust stance on this and we are investigating every individual claim thoroughly.

"There can be perfectly genuine accidents, but if we feel we have a defence because our inspection process meets the legal requirement, or if a claim is not deemed genuine, we will defend it all the way to court."

Council spokesman Mike Clark said: "We want to kill this impression that there is an enormous amount of money to be made by taking a dive.

"We are now successfully defending about 80 per cent of claims."

Steve Hilton, of Hartlepool Borough Council, said that although it still had a number of outstanding claims, it had managed to reduce the amount of money being paid out year-on-year.

In 1998/99, £261,521 was paid out, but this figure had dropped to £31,449 in 2001/2.

Mr Hilton said: "As we get more claims involving footpaths than roads, we have realigned our spending accordingly.

"We inspect every highway at least every six months and every month in shopping areas, and also have a rapid response team for dealing with urgent defects.

"We are also increasingly prepared to go to court to defend claims because our inspection regimes mean that we do have a good defence."

A spokesman for Newcastle City Council said: "Payments for the policy year 2002/3 are currently around £50,000, but a significant number of the public liability claims are still outstanding, with estimates of between £1m and £2m.

"Compensation payments do eventually come out of the public purse because whatever our insurers pay out, they will seek to recover through their premiums."