Private Road - Do I have any rights?

TheCuriousSausage

We live in a small private road and have two small garages next door where planning permission has been granted for a tiny single storey house which resembles a public toilet. The council ignored the fact everybody in the road objected, but our worry now is that the road will be dug up to allow services to be connected and not repaired properly. Is the developer allowed to just dig the road up with the permission of the road? We are only 10 houses and have no formal management body. I did express my concern to the council in my objection that damage to the road would fall upon the residents but unsurprisingly they don't care. Thanks

user1977

Who owns the road? What rights (if any) do you (and the neighbour) have over it, if there isn't a "formal management body"? Is anybody actually proposing to dig up the road, or are you just worried that they will?

TheCuriousSausage

Thanks for the quick reply. We are just worried at the moment as the main sewer runs down the middle of the road outside the plot and the water main is on the far side of the road. I don't know how electricity or gas is delivered. The permission was granted over a year ago and we have heard the delay was due to problems with the services but these have now been resolved apparently.

Our deeds state "The purchaser shall pay to the vendor or her representatives a fair proportion of the cost of maintaining and keeping in repair [the road] regulated by the frontage to such Road until the same shall be taken over by the Local Authority such proportion to be determined by the Surveyor for the time being to the Vendor or her representatives"

The boundary line of the property goes to the road

user1977

Do you think the neighbour's rights to connect to utilities in the road are likely to be any different from your own?

Norman_Castle

I'd suspect the owner of the land is entitled to do the necessary works on the understanding the road is reinstated to its current condition.

TheCuriousSausage

user1977 said:

Do you think the neighbour's rights to connect to utilities in the road are likely to be any different from your own?

But I am not digging up the road

TheCuriousSausage

Norman_Castle said:

I'd suspect the owner of the land is entitled to do the necessary works on the understanding the road is reinstated to its current condition.

That sounds reasonable but I do not know if there is a formal agreement that has to be made. If they bodge the road repair it then potentially falls to the residents to repair it properly. 

user1977

TheCuriousSausage said:

user1977 said:

Do you think the neighbour's rights to connect to utilities in the road are likely to be any different from your own?

But I am not digging up the road

Presumably though it was dug up at some point for your utilities to be installed, and they're going to need dug up at some point in the future?

TheCuriousSausage

user1977 said:

TheCuriousSausage said:

user1977 said:

Do you think the neighbour's rights to connect to utilities in the road are likely to be any different from your own?

But I am not digging up the road

Presumably though it was dug up at some point for your utilities to be installed, and they're going to need dug up at some point in the future?

My house and the one next door were the first to be built in the road 60 years ago so the road would have been built post construction. The road was then extended in 1984 for the other houses to be built so again, there was no disruption to the road 

comeandgo

Roads are dug up all over the country, the company doing the digging have to leave the roads as they were found.  There are also companies doing no dig insertions.

user1977

TheCuriousSausage said:

user1977 said:

TheCuriousSausage said:

user1977 said:

Do you think the neighbour's rights to connect to utilities in the road are likely to be any different from your own?

But I am not digging up the road

Presumably though it was dug up at some point for your utilities to be installed, and they're going to need dug up at some point in the future?

My house and the one next door were the first to be built in the road 60 years ago so the road would have been built post construction. The road was then extended in 1984 for the other houses to be built so again, there was no disruption to the road 

But you have the right to have your utilities under the road, and would expect there to be an ability to dig them up whenever they need fixed or replaced, yes?