How can this be legal?

[Niksen]

I think the more important point is further down the story :

Many residents have already declared they will not be changing to the new provider as they see no reason why the poles and wires cannot be buried like the other two networks. He added: 'Kingston has put in underground cables so has MS3. So there are already two underground networks.

So two other networks bury their cables but this company take the cheaper option of erecting poles. Why don't they all get to together and dig the road up once.

Hull is odd - and the telcoms there is as well

Back in the mists of time Hull was one of the few local authorities that took up the opportunity to set up their own telephone network and as a result Kingston Telecom has the monopoly there not BT/Openreach.

The article mentions that Kingston has run underground cables, which you would expect given it has been operating the phone lines forever,

MS3 says they have had difficulty negotiating with Kingston to use their ducts but might have finally reached an agreement (https://www.ms3networks.co.uk/post/ms3- ... astructure) which indicates that Connexin suffered the same difficulty and wasn't able to and took the cheaper and easier option of putting in telephone poles.

So why didn't they all get together? Well the age old story of a dominant monopoly supplier not wanting anyone else treading on their turf and making life awkward for competitors and the only people who really suffer are the public.

[Mike4]

Runner bean growing opportunity.
Clematis.
Hops.
Etc.

Beehive access??

Is there a way to attract woodpeckers who will eventually weaken the pole?

Or a way to sabotage the electrical bits at the top?

Make it cheaper for them to underground it, as of course they should have done. I could have some fun with this.

Unfortunate accident with your tree-lopper, even?

[SebsCat]

A service strip is just an area of public highway that is usually covered in grass not tarmac and runs alongside the road. Often there is a pavement between the service strip and private property and so it is obvious it doesn't belong to the home owner, but it is when there is an open frontage that runs into the service strip (as in this case) that issues can arise.

FWIW, our previous home was in an estate built in the late 80s. The deeds showed that we owned all the land up to the road but there was a metre wide strip adjacent to the road which was covenanted to be a "service strip". The covenant stipulated that we weren't allowed to build any structure or plant deep rooted trees, bushes, etc in the strip and the original drives sort of reinforced the idea with the roadside metre of each drive being separated by a concrete strip from the rest of it (the rest of the frontage being just grass). In our specific case, there was a streetlight within the strip so there was no doubt that it was not entirely within our control. By the time we left, some 20 or so years after the estate had been built, most of these strips had been tarmacked over to extend drives (which is what we partially did) or otherwise incorporated into the general garden. I've always wondered what would happen if anyone tried to claim a right to install new infrastructure in the strip - especially as the original covenant was in favour of the developer who went bust not long after the estate was completed so it was only whoever inherited the covenant who could enforce it.

[Nemo]

I've a close relative who is looking at moving to a newish housing estate - one where there is a lot of open green spaces. Would a solicitor be duty bound to mention these service/ransom strips? Is it even possible to look these up somewhere?

Unlikely to be a ransom strip issue, but if she was interested in service strips then the first thing to do would be to look at what is there.

If what she is buying is house -> garden -> fence -> pavement -> road then it is pretty unlikely there is a service strip there, but she could ask the solicitor to check.

If what she is buying is house -> garden -> road (or road with hint of pavement as is the way on many new developments) then I would definitely check, as that was the issue in the case in the article; that there was no definitive boundary between the end of the garden and the service strip.

Also in the article it mentioned that the owner had checked their deeds, but the Land Registry deeds are just a rough indication and wouldn't be detailed enough to definitively prove whether that 18" strip of land next to the road is yours or belongs to the highway.

However if it is a new development with lots of green space then I would also be asking questions about

- the adoption of the roads, and whether they are they designed and constructed so the council will adopt them at some time, as many are not designed or constructed to a standard that the council will ever adopt them and so the residents will be on the hook for any future maintenance - the reason they are designed this way is that the developers can squeeze more houses on the site. For example a new estate next to mine has 'pavements' that 9" wide - that is correct nine inches - effectively just a couple of lines of brick pavers next to the edge of the road. Doing that, and making the roads narrow and with very tight corners meant more houses could be squeezed onto the plot, but that road and pavement doesn't meet the council standards so it is impossible for it ever to be adopted.

- similarly with the green spaces, who is paying for the maintenance and upkeep, and likely it will be the residents through some sort of management charge, but how much, who runs it, is there a limit to increases, etc.

Thanks again Niksen

I've passed your comments onto my relative and think that her solicitor is going to get a some rather searching questions!

[tjh290633]

We bought 3 new houses in 1961, 1963 and 1970. In each case we owned the land to the centre of the road until such time as the road was adopted, at which time our boundary became the pavement edge nearest the house. Those were all new developments.

In the case of our present house, bought in 1978, the county council owns the first 12 feet deep/ wide abutting the road "for road widening purposes", which will never happen. I have a licence to use the land for recreational purposes and was supposed to plant a hedge along the boundary, 12' from the existing hedge. I am not supposed to cut the existing trees on that patch. There were two saplings, a holly and a yew, and a mature Arizona cypress. The latter has been trimmed by the electricity board on several occasions, who ask me for permission, but I always tell them that they must ask the CC for permission. Meanwhile the holly and the yew have become mature trees, and the passing traffic keeps them trimmed. There is a lot of undergrowth, which has to be kept at bay.

I can see problems when the time comes to sell, unless the CC is willing to relinquish ownership of its strip.

TJH

[Rhinocol]

Serbscat. As far as I am aware a restricted covenant can still be challenged if the person who initiated it , usually the builder is no longer alive or unknown. It would need an application to the high court for a judge to review and make a descision on the validity of the covenant. Unfortunately this can be a very expensive process costing (I received a ball park figure some two or three years ago of £12k which tends deter most of us