Private, or 'unadopted' roads in England and Wales
This paper explains what private or ‘unadopted’ roads are and the problems and issues associated with them. It also explains who is responsible for maintaining these roads and how highways authorities can ‘adopt’ such roads and make them public highways.
A private or unadopted road is by definition a highway not maintainable at public expense. The local highways authority is therefore under no obligation to pay for its maintenance. Responsibility for the cost of maintaining a private road rests with the frontagers (the owners of properties which front onto such roads).
There are two main types of private or unadopted road: those on new developments such as housing estates and those which, usually by historic accident, have existed for a long time, often since the nineteenth century. A Department of Transport (DfT) survey in 1972 found that there were then approximately 40,000 unadopted roads in England and Wales, making up 4,000 miles of road. No later survey has been undertaken and the DfT do not hold data on the number of unadopted roads (PQ 8931, 15 January 2024). However local authorities do have to keep a list of all roads they are responsible for.
The Labour Government estimated in 2009 that it would cost £3 billion to bring all unadopted roads to an adoptable standard. In Wales, the now defunct Unadopted Roads Taskforce also undertook research ‘A brief journey around unadopted roads in Wales’, which concluded that adoption of all roads would not be possible due to the cost.
The law on the maintenance and adoption of private roads in England and Wales is highly complex. It is mostly contained in Part XI of the Highways Act 1980. Statutory provision does exist for unadopted roads to be adopted and thus become highways maintainable at public expense. Statutory provision also enables the street works authority to require frontagers to undertake repairs if there is a danger to traffic in a private street. Where the frontagers fail to act as required the authority may execute the repairs itself and recover the costs from the frontagers.
Andrew Barsby, Private Roads: The Legal Framework (6th ed.), 2021, contains a thorough description of the law.
There is separate legislation for Scotland and Northern Ireland, detailed in Section 1.5.