Development in Private Lane

lincroft1710

JMKernow said:

A question I have is with regard to the county highways rights of jurisdiction over a private lane.
Clearly they have a responsibility for the exit of the private lane onto the adopted highway network.
Do they have any responsibility for safety issues within the lane? 

The whole point of not adopting a road or lane is so that the relevant highway authority is absolved from any responsibility thereon.

Hi_Fidelity

As you say ... it depends on how the the requirement is documented in the deeds.

JMKernow

Mickey666 said:

Hi_Fidelity said:

If the 1 house is replaced by 5, would that not reduce the proportion of any maintenance charges for the existing properties? e.g. 6 houses off the lane ...so each house pays 1/6th of the charges. 1 house becomes 5, making 10 in total ... so each house pays 1/10th of the charges.

That would certainly be fair but I think it will depend on the deeds of the existing houses, and in particular the one house soon to become 5 houses.  If their maintenance obligations are quoted as a fixed percentage then I’d not be surprised if the 5 new houses end up dividing that percentage between them.  After all, to legally change the maintenance obligation in the all the deeds would take some time and effort, so why would a developer offer to do that?  Especially if they can sell the five new houses with reduced maintenance costs, which would be an advantage to them wouldn’t it?   The existing houses would not be any worse off, though I suppose they could argue increased costs through increased wear and tear.  

The other thing that strikes me is about the lane ownership.  If there really is no owner (which I doubt), how did the various houses obtain a ROW over it, along with their maintenance obligations, in the first place?

Thanks for the reply and interest.  We have gone to great lengths to find an owner without success. In addition there is no maintenance agreement in place, nor has there ever been. Individual property owners have maintained the surface at their own expense. We understand that we are each responsible for the surface up to the mid point adjacent to our frontages. Our ROWs are historic and have never been questioned with nothing relating to that aspect on any deeds.

JMKernow

Thanks Mickey666 for the full reply.
Our problem is we have no historical records of ROWs and any maintenance agreements. We have to start from scratch.
The maintenance of the lane has always been on an informal basis so as and when pot hole filling has been necessary we all get on and fix it,  it has not been a problem up until now.
So we have an owner of 1 property who has outline planning for 5 houses which he is now trying to sell on. Two thirds of the whole site he is retaining for potentially another 5-10 houses down the line. 

We want to set up a residents association as well as a maintenance agreement, any advice and links on how to do that would be much appreciated.

JMKernow

Thankyou Mickey666 that is really helpful advice and experience which will help us get our act together here!
Thank you very much for your time.

JMKernow

ProDave said:

Check your council policies.

Where we are, if a development means a private road will serve 5 or more houses in total, then normally the council demand that road is upgraded to highway standards and then adopted as a public road.  So a major expense for whoever builds the 5th house on the road.

That is very interesting! would you mind saying which Council area you refer to please?

davidmcn

Is there nothing in the planning papers about the road? Not sure whether it would be dealt with at all at outline stage. 

JMKernow

davidmcn said:

Is there nothing in the planning papers about the road? Not sure whether it would be dealt with at all at outline stage. 

Ok, Highways made a comment that the entrance to the development off the private lane should have visibility splays, so drawings for that were duly submitted and accepted by the council.. They were not concerned, in their comments, about the increase in traffic in the lane which we predict will be 2-3 times as much as present.
There have been 2 previous housing PAs both refused by the council. Importantly an appeal 29 years ago was dismissed, which you might think our council would have taken into account at the planning stage, as follows:

"With regard to the lane itself, I observed that, apart from a width of some 8m at the junction, it is only some 3.5m to 4m wide along the frontage to the appeal site. The surface of the lane is rough, unmade and full of potholes. Local residents advise me that it is a private road, which presently provides access to some  9 properties.      While I appreciate that it is possible for vehicles to pass each other by using the existing combined entrance drive areas and that you propose to construct a new passing bay as part of the overall scheme, I consider that the present width and surface of Wetherham Lane are so seriously sub-standard that it would be totally unsuitable for the additional traffic movements likely to result from your proposed development To my mind, this, together with the lack of satisfactory visibility at the junction with the Class III road, constitutes another sound reason for dismissing your appeal."

As the developer does not own the lane he can not provide passing places. The distance from the main road to the site entrance is in excess of 200 meters.

Sadly it seems that there is so much pressure by our national government for new housing that little consideration is given to the safety and 'rights' of residents and others affected by planning approvals.

 

Mickey666

"As the developer does not own the lane he can not provide passing places. The distance from the main road to the site entrance is in excess of 200 meters."

When I was researching my responsibilities for the lane I own with ROWs of a few other houses, I read somewhere that a ROW confers the right to 'pass and repass' over said lane but gives no rights to 'improve' the condition of the lane.  Thus, if I decided that a non-tarmac'd, rutted and potholed lane was adequate for me (as owner) then the other properties with ROW over the lane had no right to actually 'improve' the condition of the lane.

In your case this suggested that the developer (or anyone actually) could not 'improve' the lane in order to satisfy any highways objections to the development without the landowner's consent.  Technically.  In practice, of course, the developer might just go ahead and do it anyway (if it helped them with planning consent) on the basis that the unknown landowner is unlikely to suddenly appear and complain.

I don't know if it would be possible, but it might be worth investigating whether your unregistered private road could be 'claimed' by the residents and duly registered as the legal owners at Land Registry.  You could probably make a good case for registered ownership and LR might give 'possessory title', which leaves the door open for the original owner to present their better claim within 12 years, which seems unlikely to happen in this case in which case you could convert to 'title absolute' after 12 years (or maybe 10, I'm not sure).  Would likely need some legal advice, so there will be costs involved, but might be advantageous to all residents in the future.  Just a thought.

NameUnavailable

If I was the developer I would probably want to tarmac the road to help the saleability of my new properties.......