Turning in a private road

[RoadyMcRoadUser]

Preparing to get flamed for this…..There is a large private road literally next door to my kids primary school which is situated in a cul de sac. The public road gets massively congested in this cul de sac as you can imagine. I have sometimes had no choice but to turn my car in the private road. I have never parked there and doing the school run twice a day have never seen anyone else parked up there either. There’s a guy who lives in the road who will literally stand and glare at me if I turn the car round in his road on the school run. It’s like he comes out of his house specifically at school run times to observe this.
I know you aren’t “supposed” to put an inch of the nose of your car in a private road. But equally, there’s a part of me that thinks if you are that enraged by your private road being used by anyone other than the people that live there, then why would you buy a house directly next door to a school in a cul de sac with no other turning options? Am I being an arsehole? Or is this man overly precious?

Right, well my private shared drive is most certainly not a byway .
so, I guess the issue is it depends on extent of road vs driveway.

A private driveway from a road to a house is not a public road. A private road is still a public right of way.

No, a private road is not a public right of way by definition. Public right of way means that the general public has the right to access and use the road. Private roads, on the other hand, are typically for the use of a limited number of people, such as residents who live on the road who have a legal right of way. The maintenance of it is the responsibility of the landowner/s or the residents.

The private simply refers to who has responsibility for upkeep.
For a truly private road it has to be gated and that gate to be closed at least once a year.

• "Private streets are privately-maintained roads where the public has a right of way. If a private street needs repairs, the local authority has the right to make it safe under the Highways Act and charge residents for the work.
• Private roads are roads where no public right of way exists. Residents are solely responsible for any repairs. These roads must be gated, unless registered, at least once a year to prevent through traffic, but this is usually the case all the time.

https://www.pureblockmanagement.co.uk/news/private-roads-what-do-they-mean-for-residents

The only private road I know near me is a private estate owned by a landowner with a number of houses on it. It has a gate that is closed every night.

Yes and ours is, it’s got a gate, we do close it and the MOD own our road!

Then yes it is a private road.
But most people when they say private road, they mean an unadopted road.

If you buy a house on a private road in a country like England then you should expect people to use it as a road. Ie to drive on the bloody thing. This is not Dubai where your wealth allows you to act like a precious little prince in your ivory tower . We tend not to tolerate that here. I’d crack on OP.

Eh?

More parents should be walking their children to school, or parking further away at least. And no, they aren’t all disabled or have mobility issues. The majority just can’t be arsed and feel entitled to park right outside the school.

Where I’m originally from there is a lot of wealth and a lot of privilege. People tend to defer to that but I’ve found English people to be less tolerant of this (wealthy people expecting to be treated differently) and I love that about this country.

I have a funny feeling this post is about my local junior school… cul de sac leading a group of flats I think, and definitely built after the school was there. There’s a grumpy man in there too, glowering at anyone doing a 3point turn. Whilst I totally agree parents shouldn’t park there, the gridlock in the rest of the road is so awful that I don’t understand why residents wouldn’t want the traffic to clear asap (noise, pollution, impacting getting in and out yourself).

Why such a snippy post? My private road is actually private. There’s no need to drive on it unless you live down there. But parents use it for a well known private school nearby. And they like to park in our drives. Why should we ‘expect that’? It doesn’t make us ‘precious princes in our ivory towers’ for not wanting people doing that. 😂

Public rights of way give the public the right to use them to get to where they need to be, they're not there for lazy school parents to park and turn around their cars. Not everywhere has a public right of way. It sounds like a dead end road not a through road for the public. You should only be there if you're accessing the houses.

I don't think you are being inconsiderate if you are only turning around in the circle thing and not someone's actual drive. If the residents don't like it, they need to get over it.

This. And people talking about OP contributions to wear and tear is ridiculous..it's a road! To be driven down!
She hasn't done anything wrong!
And I live on a private road and pay for upkeep.

Stop tying yourself in knots no excuse

@Notastripper you are wrong. Legal to use the road to turn around.

No you don't pay to re surface it. Walk your child And if you live 5 miles away why did you buy a house so far from a school.

We live on a private cul-de-sac. Each of us own the part of the road in front of our property. So many people from other roads started parking on it that it looked like Asda's car park on a Saturday afternoon. They thought nothing of making it impossible to get out of our drives (their logic being that as we have drives to park in, they should have the right to park on the road). And each of those cars - it being a cul-de-sac - had to do a three point turn to get out. It got so bad we've employed a parking company that has the right to issue parking charge notices and follow them up through the courts if they're not paid.

For those saying that even if it is private there is a right of way, yes there is. It's in the deeds to the house that there is (deeds from 1898). But a right of way means that you have the right to use the road to get from A to B. It does not include the right to do three (or more) point turns.

Our road is in poor condition and even though it's only long enough for 10 houses we are looking at upwards of £80,000 between us to have it repaired.

Yabu, you do have a choice; you park further away

I use whatever I need to in order to turn safely in a road, not just on a school run. Private roads, private drives, I really couldn't care less. I do what I need to do to be safe and keep other road users safe.

I guess the glaring man is a very good deterrent to stop people thinking of parking on the road.

No. That would only be true ‘if it had a ‘right of way’ on it.

it is always best to assume no right of way until proved otherwise. Check with the council

@NotTheCase just googled this but, apparently, private roads are privately owned/maintained roads which are nonetheless publicly owned rights of way. Never knew this until now, but yes we’re allowed into them.