Parking/RoW/Unadopted road

[gradeA]

Chaps,

Just after a little advice, and possibly some information as to where I might be able to investigate.

I live on a fairly busy thoroughfare road in a small village suburb, a few doors along from an unsurfaced side road. Whilst the houses on the opposite side of the road all have driveways, my side is all late 1800s terraces with no off-street parking, and a such, road space is at a premium. The unsurfaced side road has, historically, been used by those living closest to it to park alongside the fences/hedges of the two houses either side of it (whose addresses are on the main road). The houses fronting the unsurfaced road don't start until the end of those houses' gardens, and no-one parks outside them.

The house to the left of the unsurfaced road have just had the hedge highlighted in red replaced with fence panels, and yesterday "Private Road, No Parking" signs appeared on the side of their house, in the blue area.

My question is: are they chancing their arm, or do they have a legal right to do this? The area they've signed off is enough for three cars to park, and if they go further and put signs up alongside the fencing, that's a further four cars that will need to find somewhere else to park (of which there isn't really anywhere). The road signs give no indcation of it being a private road, they just show the road name. Surrey CC's interactive map is also no help at identifying whether it's a private road or not.


If you want to check it out on Google Maps, it's Orchard Road, Badshot Lea.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Edited by gradeA on Tuesday 3rd May 17:31

Edited by gradeA on Tuesday 3rd May 17:32

[gradeA]

Red Devil said:

gradeA said:

Surrey CC's interactive map is also no help at identifying whether it's a private road or not.

Really? It took me less than 1 minute to find this - http://surreymaps.surreycc.gov.uk/public/findstree...

You might be interested in page 20 of this document - researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02235/SN02235.pdf

In my defense, I was trying to view it on a mobile! Thanks for those links, seems pretty definitive that a) it is a private road, and as such b) as the house in question has frontage along it they are perfectly within their rights to put up the signs.

Re. the Streetview images - they would have been taken during the day when everyone is at work - come 6pm outside the houses and down the side road is completely taken with cars. Often struggle to get parked within a hundred metres of the house and this won't make it any easier, but if it's their right to do so then so be it. Hopefully the house on the other side won't follow suit!

[gradeA]

Thanks for all the input - much appreciated!

I suspect that, given the general difficulty in finding a space to park in the evenings, the owners of the house in question have put the signs up to ensure they are able to park adjacent to their house. Much as it's going to be a pain, I think the gentlemanly thing to do is leave them to it and hope that it doesn't cause too many problems with the rest of us fighting for the remaining available places to park!

Still, we chose to live in a house with no guaranteed parking as it was cheap for what it was otherwise - that's the risk we took.