Road classification

A road has to be "adopted" to be maintained by the council. As far as I am aware an unclassified road is one which is not A, B or C-rated (Q in Scotland). Until a road is "adopted" it is the responsibility of the private owners.

 

I cant shed any light but there are roads around here that have "unadopted" on the road sign.
If its possible they usually have bigger potholes than the other roads, and are I believe private roads, so dont come under council control.

Unclassified is something different as Jocko says and are probably still under the control of the county council.

 

Unclassified appears to mean a very local/ little used/ insignificant bit of road but still recorded as the Councils repsonsibility.

• an A road will generally be among the widest, most direct roads in an area, and will be of the greatest significance to through traffic
• A B road will still be of significance to traffic (including through traffic), but less so than an A road
• a classified unnumbered road will be of lower significance and be of primarily local importance, but will perform a more important function than an unclassified road
• an unclassified road will generally have very low significance to traffic, and be of only very local importance.

If even if your road was the Councils then as you say there is a limit to overhanging branches where the owner must ensure anything below 5+ mts must not overhang the Councils property/Road, but cannot see how you could apply that rule to the branches overhanging your garden ?

If its an ongoing problem and not something you are readily able to do, then seems you can use a professional to cut back the branches and try to recover the cost from the other party.
However seems thats frought with problems so a better line might be to get a proper quote for the work and then engage a solicitor to write to the trees owners outlining the situation and costs and to obtain their written agreement to pay for it ; not commencing any works until advised by your solicitor.

 

Do the trees pose any safety risk, for example are they likely to drop huge branches or the whole tree in a storm?

Reason I ask is because although a completely different situation, I used the subtle threat of compensation claims once to get something sorted. I was renting a house and one of the upstairs window frames was completely rotten. I mean completely, to the extent it was a miracle the whole window just didn't fall out. The house in question was a bit of an odd arrangement in that the old guy next door had to cross our garden to get out the back way. The shared path ran right under the window. After several phone calls to a completely disinterested landlord I tried a different approach. I told the landlord calmly that it doesn't bother me, because if it falls on the elderly neighbour I know it's not my responsibility as I've reported the issue, so it won't be me that has to pay compensation. Next morning, at 8am, someone was round to replace the window.

 

Um..does the Small Claims Court still exist in UK, Loofah? Many years ago, our nasty neighbour took that route to make us chop down a Lombardy poplar at the end of our garden. He claimed that branches fell on his small grandchildren during a gale (). Amazingly, it was upheld, but that's not the point. It cost very little for him to make the claim, and very little for us to contest it, but from his point of view, it worked. So perhaps that would be a better option to explore than forking out a lot of money for solicitors or tree surgeons?

 

Understand your sentiment @Loofah but as they are not overhanging your property you could be in trouble if you do anything to their trees / property.

What might be the biggest catch is not what you assume your to be garden boundary, but possibly that your actual property extends into 'your' part of the unadopted road, meaning the overhanding branches could be in their part of the road and still legally their property ?

Expect the only way to be sure is to view your deeds or the Land Registry to see what boundaries are shown , if any covenants exist regarding the road and who actually owns it.

 

The deeds will almost certainly be what they call “silent”, which means: NOBODY knows anything ... until a serious accident occurs; then, suddenly you’ll be amazed how many parties will blame each other.

As far as taking matters into your own hands, be careful: even at the point where branches start overhanging your (or communal) land/garden, etc., there are laws stipulating the diameter of branches beyond which you may not cut them (even if they grow right inside your conservatory) without permission from the Council. Our new neighbour (who has taken over from our ex-eccentric neighbour whom I described at some length elsewhere) has just come across this problem (he did get permission after some months).

Good luck; sounds like a tricky one.