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Today I was looking at the junction between the A3 and A272 at Petersfield, on Highways England Network Map it showed to it be part of their network, however unnumbered on the map, I then found this map provided by Highways England which shows land owned by them as provided by the Land Registry. When looking at this I noticed that Highways England also owns the majority of the junction that joins onto a trunk road as well parts of other roads leading to the junction (I'm guessing so they can maintain the signs), also as expected they own bridges and the embankments. But I noticed in Brighton and Hove they own the entire length of the A293 (bottom picture).
Does this mean that the A293 is maintained by HE?
I'm thinking it might be maintained by HE due to weekly maintenance on the A27 southwick tunnel puts all A27 traffic onto the A293 (and A270)
Or when the A27 Brighton and Hove bypass was being built, HA bought the rights to the land which the A293 now sits on, and for some reason this was never handed back over to the Local Council. It is to note the the A293 was the route of the A27 when the final part of the bypass was being built (southwick tunnel).
I'm not sure that owing the land necessarily matters - for example, farmers own the land that the footpath is on, and may own land that includes a road through it.... That doesn't mean that they need to maintain the road if it is highway maintainable at public expense - I presume that HE can own land on which a non trunk road sits?
Yes, I would expect that "ownership" where public bodies are concerned is rather different to an individual's property ownership.
HE probably own the land on which the A293 was built because it was compulsory purchased and built as part of a trunk road project many years ago. The road itself may since have been handed over to the local authority to maintain, but there is no real benefit to going through the legal process to divest ownership of the land, because it is all owned by the state no matter what.
Indeed, ownership can be quite different from what is on the ground. The ownership of many properties having a road frontage actually includes all of that land 'ad medium filum', i.e. to the centre of the road. It doesn't mean that the owner has to maintain the highway if it is adopted. This doesn't apply in all cases since, as I know from recording acquisitions in Bristol over a number of years, local authorities will purchase parts of properties in order to widen the road. Wells Road is a perfect example of this. There is a separate acquisition file for each front garden that was cut down in length before the widening (and straightening) took place. In this case the council thus owns the land on which the road sits.
As well as the ownership issue, there's also the possibility that Highways England is responsible for maintaining a road but pays the council to do the work.
Yes, ownership of the land on which a highway lies can be somewhat academic. For example, a developer may build a new housing estate, sell the houses and then have the roadways adopted by the Local Authority. However, the developer may actually remain as the registered owner of the land despite the fact that it will generally no longer have anything to do with it.
