Livestock on the road

[Glenn A]

One of the more interesting things I notice, and I haven't seen this much on other roads in recent years, is the unclassified road from Port Carlisle to Burgh by Sands, following the route of Hadrian's Wall, has cattle grazing alongside the road with no fencing for 7 months of the year. Normally things that moo are usually enclosed for safety reasons. but the cattle can be seen close to the carriageway or occasionally wandering on to it to find more grass on the other side, which can make driving " interesting" in the dark.
A more major route where livestock were a hazard until the eighties, when better fencing was installed, was the A686 from Melmerby to Alston, where sheep could wander on to the carriageway and become quite a nuisance. I gather on other roads in the Pennines, sheep and sometimes cattle were a driving hazard, and wonder if any other roads, rather than very minor roads near farms, still have livestock wandering about.

[jnty]

Realistically this happens a lot on minor roads in my experience. It would be interesting to know what the 'most major' road is where you could reasonably expect to find livestock wandering on the road by design (rather than by escape.) I don't know what the rules are and where liabilities lie - presumably you have a responsibility not to let cows wander on to a motorway, but is it basically a case of "look where you're going" everywhere else, with fencing being a sensible measure to avoid losses on busier roads rather than a legal requirement?

Some examples:

Lambs jump up from nowhere by Cademuir near Peebles.

GSV sheep near Cuaig on the Applecross Peninsula. There were highland cows that liked to sleep on the road a bit south of there too when I visited.

Lambs on the road in Duirnish. There are also highland cows here too which often cause minor delays - more usually due to associated photography than direct obstruction! The return of free-roaming cows down the road in Plockton caused some local controversy

More GSV sheep on the A87 trunk road near Sligachan on Skye. Probably a candidate for 'most major' road with free-roaming livestock.

I've seen cattle being driven down the A889 both through Dalwhinnie and at the Laggan end but it's always a movement between gated fields, as far as I'm aware.

Not quite the same, but I will use any excuse to post the sign about feral goats in Glenshiel https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3374885

[Nwallace]

Descending the cairnwell into glen shee in the gloamin midsummer you will find sheep, it's a bit annoying as its a cracking descent easily able to reach over 80kmh on it if it wasn't for the sheep, faster.
because of the steep side much less likely to have a issue with deer.

Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

[fras]

Most unfenced moorland roads will have sheep moving around, but cattle are unusual, although I have seen it up in the Pennines. In fact some years ago, we were driving from Ingleton to Dent in my old 1980 Jaguar XJ6 and came to a gate to be opened. We had passed a gate someway back so were on open unfenced land. There were cattle grazing near the gate and one of them was a bull !

The New Forest is another place where cattle graze freely too.

Funnily enough, the animal don't wander away too far, as they are hefted and know their bit of land and where the best grazing is.
https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/caringf ... boundaries.

And we mustn't forget deer, which can appear almost anywhere. I have seen a Muntjac deer in the middle of Rugby when we lived there. Of course they are not farm animals.

[skiddaw05]

A long while ago now but I stopped for my sandwiches in a layby on the A169 across the North York Moors and as it was a warm day I had the car door open, and a sheep almost got into the car to have a closer look

[Bryn666]

Plenty of rural moorland roads once you head over a cattle grid will have unfenced edges and thus livestock wandering over. It is rare to see cattle do this but not unheard of.

Sheep are the most frequent in my experience.

[WHBM]

Until just a few years ago ancient grazing rights associated with Epping Forest had free-ranging cows on unfenced open land right into London, particularly around Wanstead. Before the North Circular HQDC was completed it routed across Wanstead Flats, and could be periodically disrupted by wandering cows. Cattle grids were in place at some boundaries, and much of the land had gone for housing in the 1930s, but cows in the front gardens, roads where all the houses had front driveway gates closed, and such like were normal.

Described by me here a while ago :

viewtopic.php?p=1170297&hilit=cows#p1170297

[multiraider2]

Until just a few years ago ancient grazing rights associated with Epping Forest had free-ranging cows on unfenced open land right into London, particularly around Wanstead. Before the North Circular HQDC was completed it routed across Wanstead Flats, and could be periodically disrupted by wandering cows. Cattle grids were in place at some boundaries, and much of the land had gone for housing in the 1930s, but cows in the front gardens, roads where all the houses had front driveway gates closed, and such like were normal.

Described by me here a while ago :

viewtopic.php?p=1170297&hilit=cows#p1170297

Indeed. In the late 1980s I once drove down the distinctly un-rural High Road, Leytonstone accompanied by what seemed like the entire herd from the Flats. Many bemused motorists. The locals probably less so.

[Chris Bertram]

A couple of years ago we had a New Year break in Llandudno, and the goats from the Great Orme could be seen wandering the streets and taking bites out of the hedges. This was towards the end of the COVID restrictions, but the streets were still fairly quiet, and the goats had got used to that. Whether they still do this now I don't know.

[Helvellyn]

As others have said common on minor roads on moorland. Dartmoor has some bigger roads unfenced. Not too many cattle there though, but Dartmoor ponies are always a possibility.

[Chris5156]

Realistically this happens a lot on minor roads in my experience. It would be interesting to know what the 'most major' road is where you could reasonably expect to find livestock wandering on the road by design (rather than by escape.)

Not wandering, but certainly present: the NSL dual carriageway A30 across Bodmin Moor has signs and warning lights to allow cattle to be herded on or across the road. It might be the busiest and most important road you’ll find livestock by design.

[orudge]

It was not unusual to have to dodge sheep on the B5123 outside Rhosesmor.

[Conekicker]

Frequent on Strensall Common near York
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.04587 ... &entry=ttu

[Rob590]

It has been briefly hinted at, but the ponies in the New Forest will roam as and where they wish. For this reason many of the unfenced roads have a 40mph limit set, but there are still dozens of accidents a year involving them and the B3054 has the highest number. While they can roam where they want, they probably still count as livestock as they are looked after and managed by the 'Verderers' of the forest.

[Big L]

Wild horses on some roads around the Brecon Beacons (I don't speak Welsh) especially A4059, also featuring sheep.

[RichardA35]

Worth remembering that the commoners' rights to graze animals probably predate the motor vehicle often by centuries and it is the vehicles that are "trespassing" on the landscape not the livestock.

[jnty]

Worth remembering that the commoners' rights to graze animals probably predate the motor vehicle often by centuries and it is the vehicles that are "trespassing" on the landscape not the livestock.

Indeed - while crawling behind several hundred cattle through Dalwhinnie one summer I did think "well, they were using this road long before I was." I suppose it's a bit like how railways must be fenced in the UK due to a rule originally to keep railway passengers off private land, not the other way around.

This begs the question I mentioned earlier - has this ancient right been generally "clarified" by case law or statute law in recent times, or could I buy the right bits of land either side of an NSL D3 and graze sheep across it without fear of legal repercussions? Do motorway restrictions explicity prevent this?

[RichardA35]

Worth remembering that the commoners' rights to graze animals probably predate the motor vehicle often by centuries and it is the vehicles that are "trespassing" on the landscape not the livestock.

Indeed - while crawling behind several hundred cattle through Dalwhinnie one summer I did think "well, they were using this road long before I was." I suppose it's a bit like how railways must be fenced in the UK due to a rule originally to keep railway passengers off private land, not the other way around.

This begs the question I was asking about earlier - has this ancient right been generally "clarified" by case law or statute law in recent times, or could I buy the right bits of land either side of an NSL D3 and graze sheep across it without fear of legal repercussions? Do special road restrictions explicity prevent this?

Whilst you may own up to the centreline from both sides, my thinking is that there would have been a set of rights established by the dedication as a highway (esp with the 1959 Act that established "maintainable at public expense" that would erode and contradict your rights as a landowner. For a new all-purpose road this would normally be dealt with by land compensation and provision of accommodation works such as stockproof fencing to the land just outside the highway boundary which then becomes the landowner's responsibility to maintain. For a motorway or special road it would be slightly different and the boundary treatment is IIRC for the highway authority to maintain.

[WHBM]

When I was in Australia a few years ago a wallaby had actually got up onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge and made it to the city centre. Stopped all the traffic. Newsworthy, but the police seemed to treat it as a not unexpected event, and seemed to have a technique to marshal it into a mounted police horsebox which had been brought up.

[jnty]

Worth remembering that the commoners' rights to graze animals probably predate the motor vehicle often by centuries and it is the vehicles that are "trespassing" on the landscape not the livestock.

Indeed - while crawling behind several hundred cattle through Dalwhinnie one summer I did think "well, they were using this road long before I was." I suppose it's a bit like how railways must be fenced in the UK due to a rule originally to keep railway passengers off private land, not the other way around.

This begs the question I was asking about earlier - has this ancient right been generally "clarified" by case law or statute law in recent times, or could I buy the right bits of land either side of an NSL D3 and graze sheep across it without fear of legal repercussions? Do special road restrictions explicity prevent this?

Whilst you may own up to the centreline from both sides, my thinking is that there would have been a set of rights established by the dedication as a highway (esp with the 1959 Act that established "maintainable at public expense" that would erode and contradict your rights as a landowner. For a new all-purpose road this would normally be dealt with by land compensation and provision of accommodation works such as stockproof fencing to the land just outside the highway boundary which then becomes the landowner's responsibility to maintain. For a motorway or special road it would be slightly different and the boundary treatment is IIRC for the highway authority to maintain.

That would make sense. It feels as though there must be something preventing this on 'modern' roads beyond practical stock-preservation concerns. Are there examples of farmers getting in trouble for failing to contain livestock on such roads, I wonder?