Can a Council force your unadopted road to be adopted and charge a great price to do this?

Question

It is a cul de sac and they want £43,000 from each householder. Excuse is, if any local council vehicle uses the road it could be damaged!

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

maybe if you go to the libary look at any old laws or byelaws you might find out that way also get help from someone who knows about things like this maybe the local museum anything old on your road or try to find an historian who knows the area or the bylaws good luck

Answer 3

Yes!It happened near to me a few years ago!

Answer 4

Yes.

Answer 5

yes they can its done under the 1980 highways act which gives them the powers to do this, the figure you quote seems quite high though but i obviously dont know what extent of works or length of road involved ut one of the few objections you are allowed to make is if the works are excessive. the costs are normally devided up on a basis of length of frontage onto the road of all properties, some reductions can be made is you only have a flank frontage onto the road and even the coulncil should be paying its share for the frontage it has with the road where it meets the adopted highway. the good news is that most people find that the value of their property will increase often sufficient to cover the cost of the work and therefore building society's are normally happy to extend mortgages to cover the cost. if this is not an option payment can also be deferred until the property is sold at some time in the future but this will normally attract interest on top of the initial ammount. strange they are forcing this on you though as we only do that where i work if a significant majority of residents want the work doing. contact me if u want anymore info

Answer 6

I really wanted to see someone with a gem of a legal angle.

Alas though I see what civil liberty & freedom in the UK actually means - you pay more & you have no say.

My gut feeling was they could not do that.....

Edit - Write to your MP & councliers - why do they want to adopt it? Is it just to make their revenues higher?

Answer 7

As far as I can tell only a compusory purchase will allow a council to adopt a private unadopted road.  However there is precedent for a council issuing an enforcement notice for a private road that the general public have acquired a right of pass and re-pass.  Under such circumstances the road should be maintained to adopted standards, and the council can therefore demand that such standards are met, if they are not, the council can then arrange for the work to be done and bill the owner ( or owners)  for the work.  But that does not mean that the road has been adopted.

Answer 8

councils can do any thing