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Mr. Sutcliffe: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She said that we should find inventive solutions. Some of the privatised utilities use unadopted roads, such as water companies for the drains and telecommunication companies. We should try to find alternative ways for them to work in partnership with residents and the local authority to come up with creative solutions.
Caroline Flint: I thank my hon. Friend for his further intervention. He is right. If householders, private utilities
that use the streets and the local authority worked together they could have fruitful discussions and find a solution for the future.
Dr. Ian Gibson (Norwich, North): Does my hon. Friend have any experience of the hazards to women who have to walk along such streets? They face lighting and other problems, especially at night. In Norfolk, particularly in Norwich, refuse vehicles have problems getting down unadopted roads, and people do not get their refuse bins emptied. That creates terrible problems and makes it difficult to obtain contracts. Will my hon. Friend comment on the hazards to women and the problems of refuse collection in such areas?
Caroline Flint: I thank my hon. Friend for pointing that out. As a student of the university of East Anglia for three years, and having lived in one of the outlying villages, I know full well the problems in Norwich and Norfolk. I am pleased that so many of my hon. Friends are present to support me in what is clearly a national debate of major importance. This is not a parochial issue: it affects the rural parts of our constituencies.
On the subject of women, I have seen for myself that one takes one's life in one's hands when walking down such streets. I am sure that my hon. Friends are aware of the problems facing householders when someone falls off his bicycle having gone into a crater in one of these roads. Householders are liable for any damages that that person claims against the people who live in the street.
I hope that the Minister will deal with these issues of public health and safety. As we enter the next century, people should have the right to live on roads that are made up and fit to walk and travel on. It is not beyond our ambition and vision to consign unadopted roads to the past.
As the new Member of Parliament for Don Valley, I thought that this problem may have been brought up only in my surgeries. I welcome the fact that, as this debate has shown, many hon. Members consider this to be an important issue. Hon. Members are inundated with representations from organised lobbies putting forward their case on transport policy. When one considers how many people live in those 120 roads in the Doncaster area, one realises how many are affected every day by the dire situations in their streets and on their doorsteps.
Judy Mallaber:
Is my hon. Friend aware that many of the people who have these concerns are isolated and are not from organised groups, precisely because unadopted roads are often in rural areas, are unlit and isolated and do not have many people living on them? They come to our surgeries to ask for help, but it is difficult for them to make their voices heard, and they do not get support from many other people. Is that also the position in my hon. Friend's constituency?
Caroline Flint:
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Yes, that is position. People come to me, as the Member of Parliament, for my help in putting their case. I am grateful to my hon. Friends who have seen fit to participate in this debate and who, having done so, will be seen by their constituents as supporting them on this important issue.
On behalf of the many affected residents in Don Valley and the many other constituencies represented this evening, I thank the Minister for listening.
Mr. Fraser Kemp (Houghton and Washington, East):
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. This is an important issue, and the turnout of hon. Members shows the level of support. The problem affects tens of thousands of constituents throughout the country. In my constituency, every ward faces the serious problem of unadopted roads, which should be dealt with as part of the regeneration of the area. The problem is particularly acute in former mining constituencies, where British Coal assumed some responsibility in the past, but that is no longer the position.
This issue is about regeneration, improving the quality of life and giving people the dignity of a decent environment literally outside their front door. We can all talk about this problem in generalities, but I ask my hon. Friend to listen briefly to the case of a lady in my constituency, which I heard about at a public meeting. Mrs. Lily Earnshaw is 94 years young.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an intervention. I remind him that interventions should be reasonably brief.
Mr. Kemp:
I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind the case of Mrs. Lily Earnshaw, who, at 94, suffered an accident and the ambulance had serious difficulties getting along her street. That problem is shared by many in the constituency. In life she wants dignity, but she had a tragic experience when her husband died last year. The cortege could not leave the family home, and had to be organised from the hospital direct to the cemetery. A 95-year-old man could not have that dignity. I spoke to my 94-year-old constituent, and she pointed out that her nephew is Sir Terence Burns, who is a permanent secretary at the Treasury. Perhaps the Minister could bear that in mind when she makes financial representations.
Caroline Flint:
I thank my hon. Friend, and I thank Lily for helping us to drop such an important name into the debate.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Hilary Armstrong):
I am responding to the debate in place of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), and I apologise for her absence. As a fellow Minister in the Department, I hope that hon. Members will accept that we have discussed this issue and I am responding on behalf of the Department.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for raising this important issue. I am also grateful for the interventions of my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), for
Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) and for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp). This is a matter of great concern, not only in my hon. Friend's constituency but elsewhere in the country.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps you can help me. I am a new Member, and I should like to know whether it is in order for a Minister who was not here at the beginning of the debate, when someone from the Department involved should have been present, to reply.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
It is customary for the Minister responsible for the Department to be present at the beginning of the debate and to respond at the end. I think that the Minister of State has already apologised to the House.
Ms Armstrong:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Unadopted roads are known in the legislation as private streets, and I shall use that term in my speech. People in the country will probably recognise it more easily.
The Government's involvement in private streets is very limited, and, as a consequence, so is our information about them. The latest reliable figures for the extent of private streets date from as long ago as 1972. At that time, there were some 40,000 private streets--totalling about 4,500 miles--throughout England and Wales. In 1990, it was estimated that it would cost over £2,000 million to make up all private streets for adoption. My best guess, in the absence of firm information, is that the number of private streets is gradually declining in extent, and that the real costs of making them up are declining accordingly, but I suspect that today's figures are not very different from those that I have quoted.
My hon. Friend kindly gave me notice of some of the main points she wanted to make, and I shall do my best to answer them. First, however, it may be helpful if I set out the background in law. A private street is a highway that is not maintainable at public expense by a highway authority. As with many aspects of highways legislation, there is a long history behind the law relating to road maintenance and adoption. My hon. Friend may be relieved to learn that I do not propose to rehearse the whole story now.
Suffice it to say that 1835 marked something of a watershed, as it was the Highway Act of that year that introduced a provision whereby, for a street to become publicly maintainable, the "responsible public authority" must deliberately resolve to adopt it. Nowadays, that authority will normally be the local highway authority--for example, Doncaster borough council for most of my hon. Friend's constituency.
In most cases, the responsibility for maintaining a private street will fall to the owners of the properties adjoining it--or the frontagers, as they are known in the language that is used--who are also legally liable to meet the expenses incurred by the council, as "street works authority", in making up the street for adoption.
The current law governing the adoption of private streets is contained in the Highways Act 1980. Part XI of that Act contains what is known as the private street works code. Under the code, a street works authority can
resolve to make up a private street at any time, and the frontagers have no legal veto over that decision--although most authorities are reluctant to proceed in the face of substantial opposition. After the works, the street is usually adopted. The authority can apportion the expenses of making up the street among the frontagers by reference to the frontage lengths of individual properties, but it may also modify those apportionments if it has resolved in advance to take account of the degree of benefit, if any, that individual properties derive from the works. In addition, the authority may, if it sees fit, contribute to the cost of the schemes itself.
There are opportunities to challenge apportionments. Any property owners who believe that they have a case can put objections to the authority, on any of a number of grounds set out in the Act, and any of the objections that remain unresolved between them can be determined by a magistrates court. The authority may then demand payment. Once that demand is made, there is, as a final safeguard, a right of appeal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State against the sum demanded. That strictly limited appellate jurisdiction is the extent of the Department's involvement in individual cases. The Secretary of State cannot, for example, direct an authority to make up or not make up any given private street.
That is not quite the end of the story. In the 1950s, to avoid the wholesale creation of new private street works liability--which had been such a feature of inter-war housing--the advance payments code was introduced. Under the code, a developer building a new property on land fronting a private street must deposit a sum equivalent to the authority's estimated private street works charge before building starts. That amount is set against the frontager's own eventual liability for street works charges, which is discharged to the extent of that sum plus accrued interest. The frontager then pays any shortfall, or receives a refund, as the case may be.
There is an alternative route to adoption. A developer can enter into an agreement with a highway authority for the adoption of a new estate road or other private street when it has been satisfactorily completed. In that case, the advance payments code does not apply, and the house buyer on a new estate has the assurance that there will be no street works charges to be paid later on. Those adoption agreements, as they are known, offer such obvious advantages to both the developer and the authority that that approach is often the preferred one.
That--as I am sure you will be relieved to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker--concludes my description of the ways in which street adoption can be achieved, and the protective provisions that exist to protect individual householders involved from unreasonable demands.
I shall now outline the discretion that local authorities have to contribute from their own resources. Local authorities have the power to moderate street works charges in four ways. First, as I have already said, they may take account of the degree of benefit received. They would typically use that power in order to reduce the charge payable by a householder with a long flank frontage who may receive little or no benefit from the works. They may make up the difference themselves, rather than reapportioning the cost among other frontagers. Secondly, they may allow payments by instalments. Thirdly, in cases of hardship, the authority can waive reimbursement of the principal sum due until the property is sold, and in the meantime recover from the
householder the interest on the outstanding charge only. Finally, local authorities have a general discretion to bear part or all of the costs of a scheme themselves.
In that context, it is worth noting that local authorities have the power to use a proportion of their capital receipts from the sale of assets--generally 25 per cent. in the case of council houses, and 50 per cent. in the case of most other receipts--on capital expenditure of any kind in any year. It is, of course, for authorities themselves to determine how those usable capital receipts are spent, in the light of local priorities and circumstances. I simply point out that the power exists.
Having said that local authorities have the power to make payments, I must add that there is an issue about whether it is right for them to do so. There is no doubt that many who live on private streets see the liability to pay private street works charges as unfair. That is particularly true of people whose houses have long frontages that make them liable to correspondingly high charges. While I sympathise with those to whom these charges represent some hardship, we should remember that the liability for street works appears in the local land charges register, and should therefore be taken into account in the purchase price of the house.
Many householders have paid for their own streets to be made up and may feel aggrieved by a decision to make the service free to future users, especially in residential roads where the benefits will be enjoyed almost entirely by the householders and those who visit them, rather than by the public at large.
My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley mentioned the blighting effect of a street not being made up. She seemed to be saying that making up streets would produce an increase in house prices greater than the cost of the work. That is an additional argument for house owners, rather than local authorities, to bear the cost.
My hon. Friend spoke about the difficulties facing a council that wishes to make up a private street, and she mentioned in particular the need for consent, the problem of transitional finance, and the problem for some householders of meeting the costs. That may express itself in opposition to the making up.
On the need for consent, I hope that I have made it clear that there is no legal requirement for unanimity or, indeed, any consent by the frontagers, although a sensible council will, of course, take their views into account.
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