Patchetts Green Bridleways Trust
 PG: OBJECTS: CREATION: Adoption of "Streets" - s.228 Highways Act 1980
Section 228 Highways Act 1980 is mainly used by the street works authority (County Council or London Borough Council) to declare a street to be a highway maintainable at public expense.

The street works authority have to perform works on the route. Such street works need only be appropriate to the type of highway to which the notice relates. So for a potential bridleway, if the grass is cut, or a hedge cut back, this could constitute street works for the purpose of this section, so enabling it to be used. The authority then place s.228 "Adoption of Streets" notices at each end of the route. Only the owner of a street (or if more than one, the majority of the owners) has the power to object. If there is an objection, the street works authority can either discontinue, or it can go to the magistrates court.

Place holder for a picture of a route created by this method
The procedure has advantages in the creation of public bridleways over some of the other methods. It is simple and easy to use.
  1. No newspaper advertisement is required. This saves over the cost of a public path creation agreement or public path creation order.
  2. The notices can be put up even if no owner is known for the land. This enables a path to be created where landownership is uncertain, or where the land is possibly residual land of no current known owner. (Previously we have had to use the public path creation order system where the owner is unknown.)
  3. If there are no objections, the route becomes a public bridleway maintainable at public expense one month after site notices are put up by the street works authority. This is a quicker process than a public path creation order (but slower than a public path creation agreement).
  4. Objections can only be made by the owner of the land over which the path runs. This means that only those with an interest in the land, rather than the general public, can enter an objection.
  5. If there is an objection, the street works authority is not obliged to continue with the order, and relatively little cost will have been expended. Alternatively, the authority can take the matter to the local magistrates.
At least one street works authority in the East of England has already used this procedure successfully to create bridleways.
Highways Act 1980, Section 228 Adoption of private street after execution of street works

228. (1) When any street works have been executed in a private street, the street works authority may, by notice displayed in a prominent position in the street, declare the street to be a highway which for the purposes of this Act is a highway maintainable at the public expense, and on the expiration of one month from the day on which the notice was first so displayed the street shall, subject to subsections (2) to (4) below, become such a highway.

(2) A street shall not become a highway maintainable at the public expense by virtue of subsection (1) above if, within the period there mentioned, the owner of the street or, if more than one, the majority in number of the owners of the street, by notice to the authority object; but within 2 months from the expiration of that period the street works authority may apply to a magistrates’ court for an order overruling the objection.

(3) If an order overruling an objection under subsection (2) above is made pursuant to an application under that subsection and no appeal against the order is brought within the time limited for such an appeal, the street or part in question shall become a highway maintainable at the public expense on the expiration of that time.

(4) Where such an order is made or refused and an appeal, or an appeal arising out of that appeal, is brought against or arises out of the order or refusal, then—

(a) if the final determination of the matter is in favour of the authority, or

(b) the appeal is abandoned by the objectors,

the street shall become a highway maintainable at the public expense on that final determination or, as the case may be, on the abandonment of the appeal.

(5) Notwithstanding anything in any other enactment or provision, for the purposes of this section the time for bringing or seeking leave for any appeal (including an application for certiorari) is 2 months from the date of the decision or of the conclusion of the proceedings appealed against, unless apart from this subsection the time is less than that period; and no power, however worded, to enlarge any such time is exercisable for the purposes of this section.

(6) Where street works have been executed in a part only of a street (other than a part extending for the whole of the length of the street), subsections (1) to (4) above have effect as if for references in those subsections to the street there were substituted references to the length of the street which constitutes or comprises that part.

(7) [Omitted - refers to the owners of the street seeking to make it a highway maintainable at public expense]

© 2006 Phil Wadey for Patchetts Green Bridleways Trust. Highways Act 1980 extract © Crown Copyright.