How to force adoption of highway?

[Highburyresident]

Hi,
I live on an unapproved road containing c23 houses, some houses are broken into flats - so there are a lot of owners on this piece of land.

The local borough council, Islington, estimated how much it would cost to take the road up to standard where it could become approved and they estimated £500k, which is a big sum of money. Also, not all the residents are in favour of the council adopting the road (I am unsure of the percentage).

One side of the road is our row of houses. Georgian houses built in early to mid 1800's.
The other side of the road is a row of large trees (conservation order) with grass area around the tree, then a wall and an iron fence and then the main road.

There is a public access through the unadopted road.


Also, I asked the council to prune the trees as they may affect the drainage and houses. The council response was that this is private land and the council are not responsible for the trees. My point is that the residents are responsible for their half of the road. The frontage of the other side is a public road, and therefore the council is responsible for that half of the road.
Am I right in thinking that the council should be responsible for the half of the road that has a public road 'frontage'?


I would like the council to adopt the road. Is there anyway that I can force the council to adopt the entire road? It will be nearly impossible to get agreement from all/majority of residents due to large bill involved.

I would appreciate your advice!

thank you.

[quarterday]

unlikely to happen, there are advantages to your road being private, not many but some! does anyone know of a known owner?

[Highburyresident]

unlikely to happen, there are advantages to your road being private, not many but some! does anyone know of a known owner?

Unfortunately there is no known owner, although I will double check this with the Land registry.

[Highburyresident]

unlikely to happen, there are advantages to your road being private, not many but some! does anyone know of a known owner?

But would the local council be respooinsible for the upkeep of the opposite side of the road i.e. trees, grass area??
Thank you.

[jeffrey]

Ownership of each property's freehold probably extends to the road's centre line.
Any costs of its future adoption would fall on frontagers, rateably according to frontage length.

[bassanclan]

The cost of road reconstruction would be about £25 per square m
Surface dressing more like £2 per square metre

(Although probably x1.5 in London)

It might be worth getting some more quotes before even thinking about shelling out half a million

[leaseholdanswers]

The cost of road reconstruction would be about £25 per square m
Surface dressing more like £2 per square metre

(Although probably x1.5 in London)

It might be worth getting some more quotes before even thinking about shelling out half a million

The council figure takes into account the drains subsoil issues kerbing paths and not just surfacing; and built into their figures is an allowance for future works, not simply bringing it up to standard, as they have an ongoing obligation without any new income.

At £22k per house how does that compare to maintaining it, insuring it, creating a reserve for its replacement and tree works per year times the average occupancy period of a house.

Why not look to formalising ownership and creating private parking for you and some amenity land ala a London Square.