Can residents on a private road put up their own road signs?

[P4D]

Hi all

Moved onto a new build estate over a year ago and there is a group WhatsApp chat with more or less the whole estate on. There is one woman who keeps moaning about the speed people travel up and down the road (which is a 30mph limit) and has set up a fund for residents to donate to for her to create and order her own signs to go up telling people to slow down.

They claim this is a private road (although this I am unsure of), is this allowed? I obviously want children to be safe but not sure how I feel about them putting up signs which she’s creating, god knows how they’re going to look on a nice new estate. I would’ve presumed writing to the council would be the more appropriate route but apparently I’m wrong.

Any advice?

Also side note, it’s definitely the builders who are still building the estate she’s moaning about speeding (although they’re definitely doing under 30mph, I work from home all day), I’ve personally never seen any residents speeding at all.

TIA!

Edited by P4D on Tuesday 29th March 21:55

[Davie]

Plenty places, similar sounding estates included, have "non official" signs up along the lines of "Slow. Children" or "30mph" and many others and to be honest, the chances of those types who are speeding in the first place actually paying any notice to them never mind changing their speeds as a result are probably sod all. She'd be better investing in a high viz vest and standing on the kerb pointing her hairdryer at passing cars.

[Equus]

P4D said:

They claim this is a private road (although this I am unsure of), is this allowed?

No, it is not.

It is an offence under Section 132 of the Highways Act 1980.

Just because the road is private doesn't mean it's not a 'highway' (it means it's not a Highway maintainable at the public expense, but that's something quite different. See Section 328 of the Highways Act for definitions).

Edited by Equus on Tuesday 29th March 23:07

[Earthdweller]

Is the road going to be adopted by the local authority once complete ?

If it is a place to which the public have access to then the Road Traffic Act will apply to it regardless of whether it’s public/private property

The signs erected will be meaningless unless it’s gated and only the occupants are allowed access otherwise it’s a public place

[P4D]

Equus said:

P4D said:

They claim this is a private road (although this I am unsure of), is this allowed?

No, it is not.

It is an offence under Section 132 of the Highways Act 1980.

Just because the road is private doesn't mean it's not a 'highway' (it means it's not a Hiighway maintainable at the public expensse, but that's something quite different. See Section 328 of the Highways Act for definitions).

This is so incredibly helpful, thank you!! So even though it’s a “private road”, they still need permission from the highway authority to put up signage telling drivers to slow down? Just want to make sure I definitely have understood what you’ve said! 😊

[Equus]

P4D said:

So even though it’s a “private road”, they still need permission from the highway authority to put up signage telling drivers to slow down? Just want to make sure I definitely have understood what you’ve said! ??

Yes.

Section 132 of the Highways Act said:

(1) A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.

(2) The highway authority for a highway may, without prejudice to their powers apart from this subsection and whether or not proceedings in respect of the matter have been taken in pursuance of subsection (1) above, remove any picture, letter, sign or other mark which has, without either the consent of the authority or an authorisation given by or under an enactment, been painted or otherwise inscribed or affixed upon the surface of the highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in the highway.

What the Highways Act can't control is the placing of signage outside of the 'highway' (the definition of which includes any pavement or verge) - eg. within the garden of an adjacent property. That's controlled by separate Planning legislation in the form of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992 and associated Statutory Instruments, but the basic rule there is that the sign will require Planning Permission if it's over 0.3m2 in size (but see further detail HERE).



...and edited to add (further to my original comment that just because the road is private doesn't mean it's not a 'highway'):

See further discussion on the common law definition of a 'highway' HERE, noting in particular the bit that says 'A highway is a way over which there exists a public right of passage, that is to say a right for all Her Majesty’s subjects at all seasons of the year freely and at their will to pass and repass without let or hindrance.' and the section further down, headed 'So is a private road a highway?'.

Edited by Equus on Tuesday 29th March 23:21

[Blakewater]

So what about private car parks, yards, etc that display their own speed limit signs? A garden centre local to me displays speed limit signs at its car park entrance that are 9 3/4mph.

Obviously it's private land, but it's accessible to the public by car.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.8614179,-2.745773,...

On the other hand, there used to be a farmer on Rochdale Road who put 30mph signs in his field along Rochdale Road when it was NSL, presumably in some sort of protest against traffic speeds. At a glance, they looked official and it wasn't immediately noticeable that they were just in the field and not on the highway side of the boundary. What are the legalities of placing speed limit signs on private land next to a road to imitate official signage?

[Equus]

Blakewater said:

So what about private car parks, yards, etc that display their own speed limit signs? A garden centre local to me displays speed limit signs at its car park entrance that are 9 3/4mph.

All explained in the link I gave above: "A private street or footpath must be gated to prevent traffic at least one day a year, in reality they are gated most of the time".

The garden centre local to you will, I am sure, prevent access outside of opening hours (the clue being the fking great big green gates in the photo)?

Whether your local garden centre has complied with the planning requirements for signage is another matter (Planning enforcement is largely reactive, so if nobody has reported them, the LPA may not be aware that the signage is there).

FWIIW, it is perfectly possible to have enforceable speed limits on private land (and to lawfully display signs to inform of them), and plenty of (for example) multi-storey car parks do this, but you have to have a 'Traffic Regulation Order' in place.

[CoolHands]

If she does, put your own up

[FourWheelDrift]

CoolHands said:

If she does, put your own up

[Blakewater]

Equus said:

Blakewater said:

So what about private car parks, yards, etc that display their own speed limit signs? A garden centre local to me displays speed limit signs at its car park entrance that are 9 3/4mph.

All explained in the link I gave above: "A private street or footpath must be gated to prevent traffic at least one day a year, in reality they are gated most of the time".

The garden centre local to you will, I am sure, prevent access outside of opening hours (the clue being the fking great big green gates in the photo)?

Whether your local garden centre has complied with the planning requirements for signage is another matter (Planning enforcement is largely reactive, so if nobody has reported them, the LPA may not be aware that the signage is there).

FWIIW, it is perfectly possible to have enforceable speed limits on private land (and to lawfully display signs to inform of them), and plenty of (for example) multi-storey car parks do this, but you have to have a 'Traffic Regulation Order' in place.

I only showed that one for the quirkiness of the 9 3/4 speed limit. So the ones that don't have gates need Traffic Regulation Orders.

[Equus]

Blakewater said:

I only showed that one for the quirkiness of the 9 3/4 speed limit. So the ones that don't have gates need Traffic Regulation Orders.

Yes.

Although as this thread has shown, a lot of people don't understand what the rules are, and since local authorities don't have the resources to have teams of people searching out breaches of those rules, I'm sure you'll be able to find examples that are contravening them if you look hard enough.

[wisbech]

I presume there are also a whole bunch of specifications for road signs about deformability etc for when they get run into?

[wyson]

Wouldn’t the freeholder want a say? We did something like this but had go through our managing agents to put up 5 mph signs and private road signs. The leases where I live are very restrictive, the principle being you can’t make any kind of modification without the freeholder / managing agents permission.

Have no idea what the managing agent did in the background to get them up though. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had to get council permission. We wanted to put up gates to our road, but this was vetoed by the planners citing emergency access issues, if there was a fire etc.

You definitely can’t do what you like on ‘private land’ if there is multi household access.

Edited by wyson on Wednesday 30th March 05:42

[ChunkyloverSV]

P4D said:

Hi all

Moved onto a new build estate over a year ago and there is a group WhatsApp chat with more or less the whole estate on. There is one woman who keeps moaning about the speed people travel up and down the road (which is a 30mph limit) and has set up a fund for residents to donate to for her to create and order her own signs to go up telling people to slow down.

They claim this is a private road (although this I am unsure of), is this allowed? I obviously want children to be safe but not sure how I feel about them putting up signs which she’s creating, god knows how they’re going to look on a nice new estate. I would’ve presumed writing to the council would be the more appropriate route but apparently I’m wrong.

Any advice?

Also side note, it’s definitely the builders who are still building the estate she’s moaning about speeding (although they’re definitely doing under 30mph, I work from home all day), I’ve personally never seen any residents speeding at all.

TIA!

Edited by P4D on Tuesday 29th March 21:55

My advice for the sake of your sanity is not to join any such neighbourhood groups. Whatsapp/Facebook etc they are just full of nosy busy body Karen's. "Omg a bmw driving super fast" "does anyone own this car, its parked legally outside my window but I dont like it" "has someone seen my bin" "I saw a strange man walking past my house yesterday it was wierd" etc.

[COLONEL_SMITH]

ChunkyloverSV said:

My advice for the sake of your sanity is not to join any such neighbourhood groups. Whatsapp/Facebook etc they are just full of nosy busy body Karen's. "Omg a bmw driving super fast" "does anyone own this car, its parked legally outside my window but I dont like it" "has someone seen my bin" "I saw a strange man walking past my house yesterday it was wierd" etc.

You forgot about the need for speed bumps everywhere and a traffic light crossing placed every 10 yards up the road so the lazy fat cow and her dumb kids do not have to walk an extra 50 yards to cross a road.

[Griffith4ever]

ChunkyloverSV said:

My advice for the sake of your sanity is not to join any such neighbourhood groups. Whatsapp/Facebook etc they are just full of nosy busy body Karen's. "Omg a bmw driving super fast" "does anyone own this car, its parked legally outside my window but I dont like it" "has someone seen my bin" "I saw a strange man walking past my house yesterday it was wierd" etc.

Yup yup , and yup!

We have a WhatsApp group for our building (flats). I'm not in it.
We also have a FB page that I manage (I help manage the building ). One Karen posts like the above. I delete the posts :-)

[Mr Miata]

Even if she does put her own signs up. Are they legally enforceable and what happens if you choose to ignore them?

[Griffith4ever]

Of course they are not.

Really?

[Jim1556]

On the flip side of this, something a couple of friends and I have discussed over the years, hypothetically:

Following a large (£100m+) Euromillions win, we buy a field or 6, then proceed to make an 'ornamental' drive on it, complete with undulations, red/white kerbs etc. Obviously blocked off to Joe public, so not a highway or any PROW. A portacabin or two & sideless sheds for effect (temporary structures;)).

What's to stop us leathering round in our 911s, 458s, Vantages etc?

Would it be possible for the police to do us for speeding?