Just thought I’d see if anyone here knows about these things. Basically I am one of seven households that live down an eroded 80% tarmac surfaced track that is classed as a bridleway. The track has plenty of massive and very sharp edged potholes which makes access difficult and has started to have an impact on local services (one courier has stopped delivering) They also pose a danger to all users (walkers, cyclist and horse riders) when filled with water as they in general are much deeper than people think and the water sometimes stretches from one side to the other. The council comes once every 1-2 years and puts some cold plannings in the holes but even after just one month since the last time they came the holes are back. (£3000 wasted by the council) Tarmac is not allowed because of objections from the horse riders.

In the past we have ourselves filled some of the holes using a method of natural stone slabs bedded in by just gravel and silt (basically using what ever is laying around on the ground)a method which seems to work an awful lot better than just loose scraping or gravel.

We have approached the other residents to see if some of them would like to give us a hand filling more of these holes ourselves as the council is not likely to come back in the next year or so. The response from them has been that they don’t want to be liable for litigation by having done something to a bridleway and unless they get a written guarantee from the council that they aren’t liable they are not going to lift a finger. Do they have a point? Should I be worried about this myself or are they just using it as an excuse not to help?

Grateful if anyone who has any experience or knowledge in this field could give some advice!

I’m no expert, but I think over here in the UK, we live more in a world of ‘liability’ and not ‘responsibility’.

So I would be careful.

I fail to see what you could be liable for if you repaired the track in a similar way to the council had done in the past or in accordance with best practice / common practice. IMO the other owners are using this as an excuse to avoid paying

Yes I agree with you about the impression you get these days regarding litigations etc but is it actually happening? Do these “stories” actually reach the courts? If everyone thinks like you then it is the thin end of the wedge and we will have cases like the Chinese toddler that was left to die on the street after having been run over with all those people just walking past without helping.

two options:
1) fill in the holes as various groups. if litigation appears, all insist that someone else filled in that hole. cant prove who to blame so case collapses.

2) Notify council of pothole problem. all residents continually bill the council for damage to cars etc caused from potholes until they realise that it would be a good idea to just fix them.

If it is classed as a bridleway are cars legally allowed to drive on it anyway?

If it is classed as a bridleway are cars legally allowed to drive on it anyway?

Yes, with the owners permission, and as its his/the houses land I’m guessing he’s granted himself permission.

IANAL but it seems to me very similar to the whole “I won’t clear the snow away from the path to my house/business because if someone falls I’ll be liable” argument, which was roundly dismissed as nonsense last year (and the year before) during snowmageddon.

Surely if you are aware of a potentially dangerous issue with a road on your land (or possibly leading to your land) then would be liable if you didn’t do something about it as you have failed in your duty of care.

Yes, with the owners permission, and as its his/the houses land I’m guessing he’s granted himself permission.

if its not owned\adopted by the council, they’ve no responsibility for maintaining it though

+1 to GrahamS, same as the “I won’t give first aid in case I’m sued”, it doesn’t/can’t happen, if you are trying to help in a sensible way you can’t be sued/prosecuted.

if its not owned\adopted by the council, they’ve no responsibility for maintaining it though

This is what I was thinking – it seems a bit odd. I only ask because I am in a broadly similar position (although our lane isn’t a bridleway). The council won’t have a thing to do with it.

In our case I finally took things into my own hands and told everyone I will repair it myself – I have just asked them all to contribute to the costs. Our lane services 11 houses and the total cost is £180 for materials and equipment hire – nowhere near the £3k the OP mentions (which can’t include much in the way of labour costs if they just chuck planings into holes). Looking forward to next week now – three days off work to do some proper manual labour 🙂

But in the OP case – if it is a bridleway, can’t you look into what standard the repairs should be made to? Surely if it is 80% tarmac now and the council are responsible, they should repair to a fashion that matches the original specification and to hell with what the horses want? After all, horses walk on roads often enough so a little bit of bridleway repaired to original specification isn’t going to hurt their tootsies that much.

We have the right to drive on the bridleway as it is the only access route to our houses. Because it is classes as a bridleway the councils responsibility is to maintain the track so it is usable for horse riders and the horse riders have objected to tarmac being used (despite the road already being 80% tarmac) so the council use cold planing as they are cheap.

Unfortunately because the majority of the users are actually cars (there are 11 houses using the road on a regular basis) this surface degrades very quickly and it has got progressively worse and the council’s budget smaller. This is why we finally think it is time to actually start doing something ourselves rather than just moan to the council as we are actually the ones causing the damage! Unfortunately the people that are worried about the possible litigation are now making the people that were originally up for putting a bit of labour in to making it better worried and they don’t want to do it now.

NDT – have you actually checked that what the council is telling you is correct? Surely the horse set can’t dictate to the council what to do – why don’t YOU have a say too (you have a right of access every bit as much as they do after all)?

I wouldn’t accept what you are being told personally – I would put up a fight and demand that it is repaired to original specification.

Does it have drains? I assume it does it it is tarmac-ed

You can drive horses on tarmac though, I’ve seen it loads of times.

Try getting the council to add cement to the cold fill (or to your own repairs). This will bind together the material much better without making a hard concrete surface.

MF, unfortunately the council have been approached several times a year in the last 20-30 years and the reply is always the same (with references and quotes from the bridleway maintenance act XXXX included every time) Basically they tell us we have no say in the matter at all and they have absolutely no obligation to us at all.

They have offered us to apply to have the road adopted which would involve us paying for first putting tarmac down to the councils specification as well as actually putting drainage in which is one of the reasons obviously for the poor state the track is in now. However since the track is half a mile long and mostly goes across a golf course fairway (golfclub is not happy with the adopted road approach anyway) the cost of the job would be too much for the few households that might want to go down this route. I am not a fan as I like the fact it is a bridleway, I just want to be able to get a work party together to fill the worst bits in that are outright dangerous with a good curry and plenty of beer afterwards!

I used to be in a similar situation to you. We lived at the end of a track we didn’t own, but had a right to use it for access to our property. There was nothing formal written down, just the fact that we and the previous owners had never been prevented from using it (and an insurance policy to cover loss of access). It’s an easement by implication, there are various different types, I won’t bore you with the details.

Anyway: even if there’s nothing written down anywhere you and the other residents who use the track almost certainly have a right to maintain damage to the access track up to the standard of the undamaged sections of the track. Provided you don’t make a mess of the track (or improve it, say by tarmacing it) no-one can stop you repairing it. You have a right to do so, not even the owner can stop you doing this.

I found this out when I offered to fix ‘our’ track free of charge, and the multi-millionaire owner of the mill it ran through said he wouldn’t give me permission to do so. I consulted a lawyer about it, and was very pleased to be able to inform him of my rights and where he could stick his permission. 🙂

The liability argument is clearly BS from lazy buggers. As regards the bridleway aspect, provided you don’t block or damage the RoW, you’re fine – our track was a footpath so we checked this aspect too.

I think I’d be tempted to get some of those tarmac driveway repair bags and fix the potholes yourselves one at a tme (starting with the worst).
By the time the horsey bunch notice it will be too late – and anyway….. what can they do? As MF correctly says, horses are ridden along roads all the time, it’s why they have these

We have a similar track that leads onto our street. It’s basically just a road that no one actually has official responsibility but it is a very handy short cut. “A friend of ours” goes up there with any hardcore they have lying around and fills in the holes, and is not alone in this action. The repairs don’t last that long but at least people don’t seem to be afraid to just do something about it themselves. Very occasionally the council tips odd bits of leftover tarmac in the holes too. I’d just get on it with if I were you.

We patched our lane up with some tarmac scrapings that cam off the local tennis court wheh they resurfaced. We took some of the bigger slabs and whacked them in the pot-holes. Seems to be holding up so far.

They have offered us to apply to have the road adopted which would involve us paying for first putting tarmac down to the councils specification as well as actually putting drainage in which is one of the reasons obviously for the poor state the track is in now.

Which is exactly our position – we can give the council our lane (the house owners jointly own the lane in our case) but not until it is repaired to their specification which would cost multiple thousand £ and it is much shorter than yours AND it already has some drains in (and bizarrely the council own a lamp post on it and maintain that!!!)

So that’s why I decided on just repairing it myself.

There isn’t much difference in terms of maintaining an adopted highway and as in this case a bridleway. They’re both maintainable at the public expence, but ‘bridleway’ refers to the legal status. Regardless, the surface has to be of a type suitable for its intended use under ‘normal’ traffic (e.g. there isn’t a quarry along the access road).

If, as you have right of vehicular access along it, and its damaging your and your neighbours cars, you are more than within your rights to improve the surface yourself – if anything you’ll be making the surface better for horses too, unless you do something so bad that in which case you probably couldn’t drive up it.

So yes, your neighbours shouldn’t really have any concerns and yes, they do seem to be using it as an excuse. Horse riders only run into tarmac problems on gradients around and more than 10 degrees.

Neither would you be held responsible if a horse were to injure themselves on a pot hole caused by your vehicular use as ultimately its the councils responsibility for maintaining the surface even with cars driving on it (‘normal’ traffic again) – although strictly speaking councils don’t want to be seen to repair surface damage on a PRoW caused by vehicular damage but as long as its not too bad it *shouldn’t* be a problem.

So, ask the council to do a proper job next time around, and if they say no or plead poverty or take too long just tell them you’ll do it yourselves (secretly they’ll be relieved 😉 ).

Shout if you need more info

[edit]

probably worth a try seeing if the council will write to you confirming this, you can then show your neighbours the letter

oh, don’t bother getting the land adopted either for the reasons mentioned above

If there’s lot’s of frontagers on the route then it’s arguable that the route should be a byway open to all traffic.

Get it adopted by Surrey council they will have it straightened,flattened and covered in unrideable gravel in no time.

let me get this straight, the council do not own the track and every couple of years come along and do some repairs?

Who actually owns the land on which the track is?

The council is i believe within its rights to transfer the costs of looking after the road to the landowner.

So beware of pushing the council to far.

http://www3.lancashire.gov.uk/corporate/atoz/a_to_z/service.asp?u_id=1065&tab=3&siteid=5409&pageid=29027&e=e

orangetoaster – Member

If there’s lot’s of frottagers on the route then it’s arguable that the route should be a top dogging spot

Fixed it for you

mrmo – Member
let me get this straight, the council do not own the track and every couple of years come along and do some repairs?

Who actually owns the land on which the track is?

Paths usually go over privately-owned land, but the width of the path down to the depth of a spade (an old saying is “so much of the soil below and the air above as is necessary”) is the part owned and maintained by the council / authority.

Outside council / authority departments the terms are interchangeable, but the ‘path’ is the physical entity and the ‘highway’ is the legal entity.

My contact details are on my blog at http://planningblog.org. Have a look and drop me an email if you like.