Imposing traffic controls on private roads

• Includes caselaw on residents’ rights concerning traffic on private roads.

NLJ published in a July 2020 issue, an article by me which considered the statutory definition of ‘road’. The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 enables local authorities to make orders imposing parking restrictions on a road. Section 142 in the Act provides: ‘road’ ‘means any length of highway or of any other road to which the public has access’.

In R ex p Preeti Pereira and Environment and Traffic Adjudicators and London Borough of Southwark, [2020] EWHC 811 (Admin), [2020] All ER (D) 95 (Apr) discussed in the article, the High Court Judge held that, unless the access was lawful, the public did not have access. On the facts of that case, he found the public had not enjoyed lawful access, hence the parking restriction order was of no effect. Many private roads are ungated and nobody thinks of stopping the public from using them, even