North-East council chiefs are hitting back in the war on compensation claims for so-called 'slips and trips'.

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.

An increase in claims has been prompted by the increasing popularity of no-win no-fee legal firms willing to take on cases. Now local authorities are taking an ever tougher stance with claimants and say they are more and more willing to go to court over claims if necessary.

Some councils have also boosted highways spending in a bid to reduce the bill.

Bob Chamberlain, risk and insurance manager at Middlesbrough Borough 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 added: "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 actually 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 for trips and slips on the highway arising during this period are still outstanding with substantial estimates of between £1m and £2m.

"The problem we and every authority face is that in the final analysis compensation payments do eventually come out of the public purse because whatever our insurers pay out they will seek to recover through their premiums."