Land Covenants and Highways

[NeilW]

Does anybody know how land covenants and highways interact? I can't seem to get a definitive answer to something I thought would be straightforward.

On a modern estate where the developer is trying to squeeze the last £ of value out of expensive land, there is very little road space. Instead they create 'shared visitor parking bays' and put covenants on all the properties allowing them to use the bays as long as only visitors use them for short periods of time.

Then the estate is finished, and the developer signs an adoption agreement with the local Highways Authority. The highways authority gets the "top two spits" and enough air for passage and the rest is divided up 50/50 amongst the adjoining properties, along with the right for public passage. Including adoption of the parking bays which then form part of the Highway.

Over time the visitor bays inevitably get stuffed full of vehicles from unneighbourly types.

I thought the highway rights were statutory, but they don't appear to be. They seem to arise due to the land agreement with the Highway Authority.

The main case on the subject appears to be DPP v Jones [1999] 2.W.L.R 625, which states: "“the public highway is a public place which the public may enjoy for reasonable purpose, providing the activity in question does not amount to a public or private nuisance and does not obstruct the highway by unreasonably impeding the primary rights of the public to pass and repass” and “the particular purpose for which a highway may be used within the scope of the public’s rights of access includes a variety of activities which are consistent with what people reasonably and customarily do on a highway”

So the question is, do the covenants still bind the properties in equity even though the road surface is now a highway? Could ignoring the covenants be seen as a 'nuisance'?

Are the rights an individual is granted over the land combined in conjunction, or disjunction?