In most cases there are two separate questions to consider, the legal right to have access to the plot and the highway authorities rules and agreements, to allow access, taking into account, visibility, safety, extra traffic onto existing road or even feeding into an existing congested area. If access is to a private road you will also have to consider the arrangements to maintain it, and the chance of it needing to be upgraded, at great cost to you, if adopted as a highway.
The value of access to a plot is often said to be about a third of its value, this was based upon a court case some years back, so those who own ransom strips, small strips of land between an existing development and new development area, sometimes only inches wide, can find these holdings particularly valuable. Ransom strips may also exist where the roadside verge is owned by someone else, for example a local council, highway authority, and even sometimes within lordships of the manor, or may belong to some individual. You may have noticed with many new developments sections of ground, or even incomplete road sections, have been left by developers, to surrounding areas, allowing them to have access to other areas or to own the ransom strip, should someone else want access. If this access was to allow a further 100 houses to be developed the developer holding this ransom strip would stand to make the equivalent of 33 plots, which could be received as cash from another developer or may allow them to negotiate a better deal with the owner of the land, allowing them to buy it cheaper and undertake the developments.
Where you are crossing a verge on the side of a road owned by a local authority or highway authority, you usually can cross this without having to pay for the privilege. However you will have to pay the costs of a new kerb, and the crossover arrangement for the pavements etc.
It also follows as a developer, that you may decide to plan to allow later access over a part of your land, perhaps off a shared drive or similar and therefore owning whatever small strips or ransom strips you can within the original arrangement could come back later to present a large bonus, and only required forethought and not necessarily any additional cost. You may also be able to buy at agricultural prices an extra piece of ground next to, behind or near your property, that will allow you to influence access and therefore development that can occur next to you. It is however unlikely that you can ultimately stop development, and would find in some casers the land gets compulsorily purchased, or that they get access over it in some other way.
The value of a ransom strip is negotiable, and may depend on how else you could get into the property, and who it is you are dealing with. An individual who sees it is only one option for access is likely to be more reasonable, taking the view that any windfall is better than none at all. If it is a plot that you have discovered, you may be wise, if you can identify various means of access, to get an option on each at the earliest possible time.
The price you pay for a plot on the open market should always include access, so when you purchase a plot your solicitor should fully check out the whole question of access and if a problem exists, get a solution worked out between the parties, so that the eventual cost to you is the same.
Opening up new access
In order to gain access to some land, and therefore open up the scope to develop upon it, you need a large enough space to put in a drive, and if a larger number of houses, a two carriageway road and pavement as well. This also has to be able to be achieved usually without going too near existing properties. The exception will be where a right of way already exists over a lane or similar.
In some cases it will be cost effective to look at demolishing one house in order to open up behind a number of plots, in some cases a house can still be built on the original plot by resiting the new house so as to make better use of space. While in others you may be able to take a section of one or two gardens.
In some cases you will see a plot that is too small or where the shape is such that you cannot place a house in the direction of choice while having room for drives, garage etc. In some of these cases you may be able to find an alternative access, and buy additional land, while in other cases, you will be able to buy a section of a garden or land to the side or behind, allowing either resiting or different access arrangements.
The size of any ground you wish to acquire from a neighbour is likely to be viewed in proportion to the size of the ground they have, so a person with a long garden may be quite happy to sell you 4 or 5 yards, while a person with a small garden may be prepared to allow a yard or so, but this can make all the difference. You may need to consider the local plan and how tightly it is to be interpreted by planners, as while it may seam sensible to you to acquire a yard or two of land behind your plot, to planners it may be extending developments the wrong side of a defined line, drawn at the rear of existing properties. Gardens likewise cannot be extended into agricultural land or even waste ground where it changes the use without permission and several people a year are caught out by converting some waste ground, they can convert to garden, only to fall out with local authorities, wildlife people or others. You should also remember that many others will have an agenda completely different to yours, so what may appear to you to be common sense may appear to them to be detrimental to some interest or perceived future interest.
Shared access
In many situations you will share a section of private road or driveway with other existing houses, plots or users. Many new plots are arranged where there is paired access in some format, and sometimes where a whole development can share a common access arrangement and parking area.
Shared access presents few problems where the arrangements are well defined and everyone understands that the through way has to be kept clear at all times. There will be occasions where it is problematic, as in the case of people moving home where often a removal vehicle will get in the way, or where family celebrations mean that more people arrive than can park without creating an obstruction.
Where you are to be granted access over a private road, and arrangements are more informal, there is potentially more grounds for people to fall out. The right to gate the road, to allocate maintenance costs, to park on it, to do up vehicles, how further access rights are sold and proceeds shared, arrangement in the case of the road being adopted, and much more can come up, and not only cause disagreement but could lead to large and unnecessary legal costs. It is therefore essential if you can, to have all these matters tied up from the beginning. The worst case situation is where someone does you a favour, and allows you restricted access, but retains all rights. Later if you have teenage children you may discover the gate is locked at a set time to reduce noise, so they cannot get vehicles back in, or that delivery vehicles are not permitted, or even that animals are grazing inside the gate, but can get onto your property.
Some private roads you will come across, you will be able to see each householder maintains the patch outside their home, often to different standards and by different methods. This again can cause disagreement as the person nearest the road gets the heaviest wear, and anyone with a larger frontage on to the road has a larger section to maintain. Where public roads are swept, litter cleared occasionally, cleared of snow etc, with private roads these arrangements will have to be coped with by those using it.
Emergency access
Some properties have emergency access routes, for example if the normal road to them is liable to flooding, or crosses a military base or training area, where access may from time to time be limited. Often these alternative routes are tracks, and not all are well maintained or vehicle friendly.
Many other areas have no alternative access so any obstruction over some distance may stop you getting into or out of your home and in some areas parking at some times can cause difficulty not only in delivery vehicles getting through but also ambulances and fire engines in emergencies. Even in towns it is still common place to allow parking on both sides of smaller roads, making it difficult for larger vehicles to get through. In many more remote areas, a larger vehicle trying to get into or out of the road system can cause long delays for everyone. The police may also shut any road with no warning, for any amount of time, and road works or replacements of services can cause closures for extended periods. You are unlikely to be able to do anything about any of this, so it is important that you consider the access by various routes to the property, and if you are going to be able to cope with the limitations.
Access for services
When one thinks of access, often it is the drive, access for people, and cars that is thought of. However you also have to have access for services, and some of these are dependent not just on having a connection that can be reached, over possibly someonelses land, but also the levels of the ground in that waste water and sewers have to either run downhill or require pumping, pumps have to be usually positioned at either the lowest point or near to the outfall into public manholes, and pumps require a power supply. If this cannot be done then you would have to have alternative arrangements, with soak aways and septic tanks or similar, which requires space, maintaining, and may cause annoyance to others as well as you, if they create either boggy ground, overflow or smell.
It may also be worth mentioning that on some occasions, the drainage to sewers will be ideal, but you will not be able for the time being to join onto them, due to the current capacity being exceeded, or that the authorities would need to increase a pump or incur additional cost. Some restrictions may be imposed so as to keep down the amount of development in the area. Sometimes these restrictions can be overcome by agreeing to rainwater reccycling so that dirty water only goes to the sewer system.
You should also remember that not all services exist everywhere. Mains gas and cable TV for example will not be available in many areas, and at the point of writing this broadband telephone lines reach only a section of homes. Smaller villages and country areas, as well as most private roads will not have street lighting, and in some areas TV reception is appalling, and mobile phones will not have any signal. Even electricity may be expensive to get to the property, if a converted barn, or property that is isolated.
In some areas, the supply of services may also be affected by the weather, for example electricity may fail from time to time and with a smaller population affected may be low on the priority list. Without electricity most central heating systems will not work, therefore you may need to consider alternative forms of heating, cooking, lighting, even if the use is hopefully infrequent. Some people may also consider a standby generator to cope with some needs.
Tree preservation orders
Local councils can and frequently do make tree preservation orders. Often to protect a tree of specific interest, but also sometimes to effect the look of an area or even to have more control over how an area is developed. The tree does not have to be sizable, been there a long time or even have a strong chance of survival in the longer term. If you find that such orders exist relating to the plot of interest or surrounding it, then you need to look at this in detail and talk to planners about it and effects on the use of the site. It may particularly present a major problem as to where access can be, siting of drives, turning areas etc.
Longer drives
Beyond the initial cost of installing a longer drive, there is the cost of additional maintenance, of clearing snow and ice, plus in many cases extra cost in getting services to the property. Water and waste/sewer are the most obvious examples in that you have the cost of installing and maintaining these services to the edge of your property, and if this runs via the drive, could add considerable expense.
Concluding
There are a number of aspects to access, and here we have perhaps considered many, however it is likely to be a major consideration as to the viability of individual plots and potential plots.
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