Buying private land with public highway rights

Bartoni79

The houses are from the 70s but the TPO on the land pre dates this (from the 50s). There are a few of these pieces of land/ spinneys on the estate there which have signs pointing to Tiger Moth habitat etc (but not this one).

The residents gardens are probably 40 foot and the land is 80 foot so they could double their garden size BUT there must be 20 oak trees in there so with TPOS on them, they’d just have a heavily shadowed price of land.
My question is that if this was originally council owned as a highway, why would they sell it to someone private / why would someone buy it knowing they couldnt do anything with it? It seems a bit unethical from the council?

Section62

Bartoni79 said:

My question is that if this was originally council owned as a highway, why would they sell it to someone private / why would someone buy it knowing they couldnt do anything with it? It seems a bit unethical from the council?

That's what I was saying - the probability was this land was a field or something with an 'ancient' footpath/bridleway crossing it. The council (as highway authority) wouldn't normally own the land in a situation like this. (only if they owned the whole field for some other reason).

The original landowner/developer was then left with a strip of land which had no use other than as highway... which is how it has eventually come on the market for not much money.

Most highways (by total length) are on land the highway authority (council) doesn't own.

Bartoni79

“Most highways (by total length) are on land the highway authority (council) doesn't own”.

So in these instances, what do people do with the land if they own it but it’s public highway - just hope the council declassify it?

Section62

Bartoni79 said:

“Most highways (by total length) are on land the highway authority (council) doesn't own”.

So in these instances, what do people do with the land if they own it but it’s public highway - just hope the council declassify it?

Most of them just accept the highway right means they own land they can't do anything with.

Others simply forget they own the land, or ownership details gets lost through the passage of time.

Bartoni79

Or try and sell it at auction!

propertyrental

Bartoni79 said:

Or try and sell it at auction!

where someone will have the bright idea of selling it off in parcels at a profit.