How to establish who is responsible for maintaining a road

[avtur]

The road that provides access to my place of work also provides access to a small number of other businesses, a handful of residential properties and to the local (council owned) recycling centre/tip, it's about half a mile long and the road ends at the tip.

Sections of the road are in need of repair but the local authority deny any responsibility for maintaining the road, the greatest volume of traffic that uses the road uses it to access the council tip, yet they say they have no responsibility for maintaining the only access road to the tip.

The council aren't being particularly helpful because they don't want to admit liability for maintenance. Where is the best place to look to establish who owns the road?

[cb a1]

In my Local Authority, I would start with the 'List of Public Roads' also known as adopted roads.
Don't know if this is universal.

[M4Simon]

If it is Fairbridge Way, leading to the tip at Burgess Hill, then West Sussex's map of adopted roads shows it as not adopted, and so it is not maintainable by them as public highway. The road will therefore be owned by a private land owner.

A quick look at Streetview suggests that there is development in the area and the road is being upgraded. I don't know the area, but the images suggest that at least some of the road has been upgraded. None of this tells you who owns the road, but perhaps you could approach the developer and ask them?

This may not be the road you are referring to - I am surmising that it is because you have your location stated as Haywards Heath and this site comes up when you google 'Haywards Heath tip'.

Simon

[RichardA35]

A map based version of the list is here:

https://www.findmystreet.co.uk/map

that enables maintenance responsibilities to be seen by clicking on the road/street. (Not necessarily 100% correct but a good starting point)

[KeithW]

A google search returns the following

Client: Fairbridge Developments
Value:
Contract Period:
Completion: July 2019

Working as Principal Contractor, Gallagher Ltd has provided infrastructure for a new housing development in Burgess Hill.

Gallagher constructed a travellers’ camp a few years ago on this site for the same client. The adjacent land houses a sewage works, concrete plant and garages, and now has planning permission for a large housing development.

The scope of works comprised:

Technical support to obtain approval from planning authorities for the design
Realignment of the existing Fairbridge Way (whilst permitting access to existing facilities)
New S38 roads including a ring road for the new housing development
Ground improvement: rolling dynamic compaction and stone filled trenches and geogrids
Highways structures: piled retaining walls, road bridge abutments and bridge construction, two pedestrian footbridges and a gabion basket retaining wall
New foul water pumping station and rising main
New FW and SW drainage, 3 attenuation ponds and associated headwalls
Management and co-ordination of utilities including all builders work
The scheme was undertaken throughout the autumn, winter and spring, so careful consideration had to be taken for the multiple premises located on Fairbridge Way and the site’s single point of entry. Additional challenges arose from multiple statutory service diversions and a river (all while constructing new highways structures and maintaining traffic flow). The scheme was subject to multiple elements of design development as well as Flood Risk Assessment Protocol and Environment Agency constraints.

Primary capping materials for the new road and 6G gabion for the elevated retaining walls were provided by Gallagher Aggregates Ltd.

Looking at the Old Maps site it looks as if the site was previously a sewage works, something the developers would not have been to keen to advertise I suspect.

A liitle further digging unearths the following.

PR2150/MF/SB - 19/02/2018


Glenbeigh Developments Ltd started work this month to ready a vacant brownfield site for up to 325 new homes as part of the wider Burgess Hill Regeneration Programme.

The Fairbridge Way site, which is part of Burgess Hill’s Northern Arc area, was purchased from Southern Water by Glenbeigh Developments Ltd to provide up to 325 of Burgess Hill’s proposed 5,000 new homes. The development area was formerly used as sewage treatment works but it was decommissioned by Southern Water in many years ago and has been redundant ever since. Brownfield sites like this one require a huge amount of work to bring them back into use and Glenbeigh Developments Ltd has committed to do everything that is required to prepare the site for new housing.

Councillor Andrew MacNaughton, Mid Sussex District Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning commented:

“It is especially pleasing to see these early works get underway in what will eventually become a superb new development and a great addition to the transformation of Burgess Hill.

“It is hugely satisfying to see that 30% of the new dwellings will be affordable housing. Further, Glenbeigh will be making substantial contributions towards sports provision, local community infrastructure, sustainable transport improvements and education, all of which will be realised off-site.”

It is quite common for the works required before the council adopts the road from the developers to take some time be completed. Given the disruption caused by the disease that is not to be named I would expect that at this point the developer would be responsible.

see
http://www.glenbeighltd.com/

[jervi]

For WSCC there are two main sources I use when checking road ownership:

https://westsussex.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7f38f7eac6 - go to the layer last at the bottom and select "road network".
This will show the traces of all roads in WSCC, with additional information on road type, classification, responsibility, width, speed limit etc. However is about 6 years out of date.
This source doesn't show Fairbridge Way, so it was not a public road as of about 2014

https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/planning/ ... arges-map/
For this one drag the pin onto the map where you are interested. roads nearby will highlight as yellow traces. Click on those and it will give some information on who owns the road. If it has the letter "P" as classification it is private, if it is "Q" it is new but likely private or not yet adopted. This one is updated regularly, and usually shows roads before they even start construction.
This source has most of Fairbridge Way as "Q", so likely was likely added to the database within the past 6 years asthe new development, however the council has not formally adopted the road. However the part of Fairbridge Way within 15m of the roundabout is classed as "D", so that part is formally adopted and the responsibility of WSCC Highways.

https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/roads-and ... r-tro-map/
You can also check the TRO map, only public roads can have TROs (as far as I am aware). However there are no TROs on or near this road, so that is pretty useless in this case.

As you are aware I live nearby, what issues are you having with the road? Last time I went along it a few months ago (to check out its new alignment) it seemed pretty fine except its tie in to the Northern Fairbridge Roundabout (which is apparently being completely rebuilt as a requirement of this development).

[avtur]

Thanks for the replies, firstly the road in question is not Fairbridge Way, but I understand why anyone might think that was the road I was referring to; that said I am very familiar with Fairbridge Way because the Burgess Hill facility is my local recycling centre (I've spent many a happy hour waiting in the queue!). The redevelopment of Fairbridge Way involved substantial realignment of both the road and a water course, these works are now pretty much complete, the travelers camp is complete and it appears the preparation of the brownfield site is almost complete. The quality of the 'new' Fairbridge Way is now excellent.

The road I am asking about is in nearby Lewes, and leads to the Lewes recycling centre, most of the road (which is barely more than single track for most of its length) is in just about acceptable condition, but there is a 50 yard stretch where the potholes are severe and getting worse which is in need of maintenance.

[KeithW]

Looking at the East Sussex adopted roads map it does not seem to be on the list but it leads to an East Sussex facility !
https://escc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webap ... 7ead3ff1fb

I would hazard a guess that East Sussex CC has outsourced some of all of its recycling to a private company. This is what happened on Teesside.

[avtur]

Looking at the East Sussex adopted roads map it does not seem to be on the list but it leads to an East Sussex facility !
https://escc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webap ... 7ead3ff1fb

I would hazard a guess that East Sussex CC has outsourced some of all of its recycling to a private company. This is what happened on Teesside.

Surprisingly, these days, this recycling facility is described as owned and operated by East Sussex CC, which makes it all the more surprising that they have no interest in maintaining the only access road to the facility. It is described as a private road on the website escc/maps website. I forgot to mention that adjacent to the tip is a Southern Water facility, between that and the tip there is a good amount of traffic along this road. The problem is that since some appreciable pot holes have opened up the continual hammering they get when full of rain water is causing the to deteriorate even faster.

I wonder what would happen if 'someone', other than the council, decided to adopt this road and operate as a toll road. Given the lack of council interest in the road I wonder if that would change their mind, or even if they could do anything about it.

[KeithW]

Surprisingly, these days, this recycling facility is described as owned and operated by East Sussex CC, which makes it all the more surprising that they have no interest in maintaining the only access road to the facility. It is described as a private road on the website escc/maps website. I forgot to mention that adjacent to the tip is a Southern Water facility, between that and the tip there is a good amount of traffic along this road. The problem is that since some appreciable pot holes have opened up the continual hammering they get when full of rain water is causing the to deteriorate even faster.

I wonder what would happen if 'someone', other than the council, decided to adopt this road and operate as a toll road. Given the lack of council interest in the road I wonder if that would change their mind, or even if they could do anything about it.

What is more likely to make them change their mind is a slew of claims from users of the site for damage to vehicles.

[avtur]

Surprisingly, these days, this recycling facility is described as owned and operated by East Sussex CC, which makes it all the more surprising that they have no interest in maintaining the only access road to the facility. It is described as a private road on the website escc/maps website. I forgot to mention that adjacent to the tip is a Southern Water facility, between that and the tip there is a good amount of traffic along this road. The problem is that since some appreciable pot holes have opened up the continual hammering they get when full of rain water is causing the to deteriorate even faster.

I wonder what would happen if 'someone', other than the council, decided to adopt this road and operate as a toll road. Given the lack of council interest in the road I wonder if that would change their mind, or even if they could do anything about it.

What is more likely to make them change their mind is a slew of claims from users of the site for damage to vehicles.

At the moment they deal with such claims by saying, private road, nothing to do with us!

[Glen]

Since there is a piece of utility infrastructure (the water company facility) on the road, it is quite possible that it was built and originally maintained to access that.
Because that would have been a public body it wouldn't have been an issue that another local authority facility was accessed by it.
But it's possible that ownership was transferred to the water company on privatisation and it's now their responsibility.