Ransom strip across driveway

[Gogodonu]

Moved into our new build home 7 years ago with a license across the driveway that in the future they may use it to access the field next to us for further development. They cannot build on said field at present due to presence of a industrial works that has a ‘blast zone’. We would love to extend driveway it even add a garage to it but obviously can’t risk this if they were to decide to run a road through there! Anyone any experience on a situation like this? Thanks

Pic attached

Does the pink hatched land belong to you?

Are there any other means of access to the land apart from your driveway?

Yes it is our land and within our boundary line, it is our drive way/garden, but had a license on it so can be turned into an access road if required in future

Yes several points, all better accessible than the upheaval it would cause us

Talk to a solicitor, maybe you could buy out the license?

Or do it anyway and risk at some point you may have to relinquish it. May never happen, not like a shared access which is used all the time by other people.

I guess you could either enquire how much it would cost to buy the access right off them so it's no longer an issue. (it'll probably be an awful lot of money!)
Or see if you can fit a garage to the left of your house next to the undeveloped land.

Or buy a prefab thing that you could move / sell if the road happens? Like one of these (not recommending the company, they were the first Google result)

https://www.shedstore.co.uk/storage/garages

Well tbh I am pretty confident you knew about this issue when you bought !

It also appears that your "extra" drive bit is far bigger than anyone elses.

I am a bit surprised though that when they built it they simply didn't extend the road forwards in front of your house. How close will the pavement run to your windows if they do build the road forward ? It seems like very close.

Anyway it all looks a bit weird because there appears to be a fence, but the dotted bit above it has a red line, implying you are fenced off from your own land ?

If the red border that runs above the two trees is your land (your land below it), then maybe if they ever built the road you could cut down those trees, put a drive there and have a garage in the back garden.

I doubt very much they will relinquish rights over the land until they have confidence over what will happen with the development. My guess is the marginal amount of money they might get for the land is dwarfed by any benefit it might have in making the development happen.

In order to be granted PP they’d surely have to refer to the license holder (who would then refuse in order to protect their own interests).

Personally, I wouldn’t have relished the idea of construction vehicles going past for months/years and not knowing what might be built next door overlooking my garden, so I’d have reserved a different plot. I understand if you didn’t have the luxury of options. There’s probably very little you can do about the land in the meantime.

Same thing happened to us. We tried many times to buy the land but was told there was the potential of development behind our. It too 14 years, but we now have houses behind our property and the "additional" driveway is now the access road.

I would be more worried about how close the new road would be to my front window.

It’s exactly what it says on the tin.

It exists unless you pay a ransom for its removal, and there’s no method or format to force a value.

Id doubt you can buy it off as the potential re development of the land it gives access to is worth millions and that depends on the access via the strip.

Its going nowhere fast.

Yep. That’s what happens.

Appreciate the input everyone