Is it legal for a house builder to not put footpaths in a new estate?

[Comps83]

Seems ridiculous to me but I’m guessing it must be legal . Roads are very narrow too . No footpaths at all .

Things like footpaths shouid be included in the planning conditions for big developments. So I they have not provided what they should, the council, ought to be able to seek enforcement.

Have you raised this with your councillors?

What does the planning permission that was granted say? It is a finished site?

There are about 80 houses I think , development is split into 2 halves and they are still on with the second part
Where will I find the planning permission?
It’s something I didn’t think to check before we bought it but that’s because it’s not something I thought they wouldn’t put in!
Trouble is our front garden in open plan . With bushes right up to the curb. So people just walk/cycle etc through our front lawn as there are no paths
We’re going to end up having to pay a landscaper to move the bushes back to create a walkway but if the builders have broken some rule then maybe I could get them to do this

We don't have any footpaths on our street. Gardens end at the roadside. It's pretty quiet though.

Should add
The bushes were put in by the builders
Some of the houses have a 2 foot gap of turf between the road and bushes
It feels like our front garden isn’t ours . It’s so intrusive to be in your kitchen and see people walking on your lawn in front of your window/ kids playing on your lawn/ dogs crapping on your lawn
I’m looking into ways to make a boundary also but as I think it’s ridiculous that there is no path I do want to leave a few feet for people to step off road

Photo for reference
You can see why people use our garden to get off the road
There is more than enough room for them to have put a path on the edge

You should be able to access details if the planning permission including the approved plans on the planning section of your local councils website. If you can't find it, try contacting the planning department.

It's not unusual for roads to be unfinished while the builder is still building in the estate (the local authority won't allow them to finish them off until heavy construction traffic had finished using them). But I would usually expect to see them partially on place - so if there's going to be a pavement it will higher than the road and the kerbstones would be in.

It's hard to tell from your photo, bit it doesn't look like there is going to be Abby pavement running along your garden edge. Sometimes they only a pavement on one side of the road - maybe that's it? Is be wary of giving up garden for others to walk on - who is responsible if someone this and injures themselves while walking on your garden, who maintains it? Etc. If be inclined to either beef up the hedging or put up a fence if that is possible.

It deffo doesn’t look like a path is going in
Houses opposite are the same with bushes right up to the curb
Ideally I would fence the whole thing in.
What if someone has an accident walking on my garden now though?
I wouldn’t actually make it a path it would just be grass which we would still maintain . I don’t think we are allowed a fence up to the curb anyway

We're not allowed to put anything on the road side of our garden - it's a service strip. From your picture I'm not sure why people walk in your garden?

I think about 2 feet of ours is service strip too
Which makes me think they shouldn’t have put the bushes there
I can understand why ppl do it, the curvature of the road sort of naturally leads you on to our garden. Especially if there is a car coming and there is no where to go

This seems to be quite common now in new builds. There are a few around my area like this.

I'm not a legal person so I don't know where you would stand but but I think you would have an argument that they were trespassing in your garden at the moment (and the garden had been laid out to discourage people from walking into it). If you make it look like the path is public them that's confusing if you see what I mean?

If there are any restrictions on what you can do in your front garden (such as a service strip) they are usually in your lease and/or land transfer document (registered with land registry).

Talk to the solicitor who acted in your purchase, assuming you bought the house as a new build they should prob have the PP on file and will be able to tell you exactly where your boundaries are and if there is a right of way over the grass between your house and the road (they ought to have advised you of this when you bought the house)

I guess they can't put a pavement over the service strip, only option would be to reduce the width of the road

It’s like that where I live and the houses were built almost 20 years ago. It’s the one part of where I live that I don’t like. We eventually built a 3foot wall at the inside edge of the service strip

The problem with new developments like these is that to cut costs developers are creating smaller roads than the council will adopt. You may discover that they are not to be adopted and you have responsibility for maintenance once the developers move on. Check with the solicitor who acted for you. They should have pointed this out to you at the time.

What's a service strip? Is it like a right of way for pedestrians?

Not if it’s nit an adopted highway.
If it’s not adopted it’s assumed shared access and is privately (or not) maintained.

We loved on an estate like this once but everyone just walked on the road. I think the idea was to make the road a shared space and narrow so that people would drive more slowly. You need to find out from the developers whether your property runs up to the roadside.

Nobody thought of accessibility for the less able ? Wheelchairs ? Scooters ? Is it the sort of development where they'd be unwelcome ?

@DGRossetti exactly! I was just thinking this very same thing this morning
By law they have to put a toilet downstairs for wheelchair users yet they’d have to go out into the middle of the road to even get to their car!

DW and I visited a load of new builds a couple of years ago (they really are crap, I wouldn't buy one if you paid me).

3 of the show homes were unaccessible by wheelchair as there was a car park of pea shingle to cross to get to the path. It was clearly a set design.

Someone in the builders correspondence there must have been some discussion on how to keep unsightly disabled folk out while not breaking the law.

Be curious to see what covenants are attached at the end of the lease ....

This is the same on our massive 1940's estate. We walk on the roads, nobody walks through each other's gardens.

I like it. It means everyone drives really slowly and it's far easier for pushchairs/wheelchairs etc as you don't have the issue with people blocking the pavement by parking half on them or the issues with curbs.

There's no point in making a path on your garden if it's not continued through the whole estate surely?

I just feel like if I don’t make a bit of a walkway at the edge then ppl will continue to use my front garden as if it’s a public place
It’s made worse by the many people who don’t use their 2 allocated spaces and park in the street instead , therefore making most of the road a single track .
I need to get a landscaper out to see what we can do re fencing etc
I found the deeds and covenants and I can’t see where it says we can’t put up a fence so I think we will have to just fork out and pay for it. Will have to put it back away from the service strip. So people will no doubt just walk on that but at least it will keep them off the rest of the lawn
Not sure if I can also move the bushes back and away from the service strip . Think they’ve been in there for 2 years now

Other people on the estate probably don’t have this problem as ours seems to be the biggest front garden and some houses have tall bushes where we just have the dumpy ones which are easy to step over and ours just seems to stick out a lot more than others . It’s easy for them to step on to our path , straight down our lawn and then off again at our drive on the other side