Management company land - help!

[Dontthinkthrice]

Hi hoping someone can help.
I live on a development where the entire land was bought by a developer. The ‘land for use of residents’ has been handed over to a management company to which we all pay a yearly fee for upkeep. Is this land open to members of the public? Or just residents of the development? I can’t find anything specifying so thought I’d see if someone knew this sort of stuff.
I don’t know why I would pay a fee to the management company for land that the public also use.
Thanks

What kind of land and what kind of use? If it's a gated community you have some control I guess but if it's just a regular housing estate how are you going to police who is on a particular bit of land?

It’s a very small development of a few houses. The land is a mixture of grass and wooded areas and residents have entrances onto it. There is no access from the main road. You have to virtually walk up someone’s driveway. I’m not worried about policing it, just knowing if it would be for public or not. The plans say owned by the developer and maintained by the management company to which we pay for its upkeep. I’ll speak with the developer on Tuesday but it’s bugging me for now

This exactly

We pay a management company for the upkeep of our development but bordering open countryside and a byway, there are several footpaths (both ancient and new) which give access to and across the development.
Clearly even though we (the residents) are paying for the upkeep of the area (which includes a significant area of open space & parkland) there is public right of access and indeed people come for a stroll, walk their dogs etc as it is such an attractive area.
Don't think it has ever occured to any of us that it is for residents use only.

Cross post, you have clarified it a bit now.

There are no public byways on our development

Would you agree this would be for the private use of residents? And not general public? There are no public footpaths

Is the only access to it at all via gateways from residents private property?

If yes, I imagine what will happen is even if the developers say it's not public access, people will decide that they want to walk there regardless and will go through residents' gates to get there.

The residents that are annoyed by that will lock their gates, and the people will move to the other gates until they're all locked or there are residents who DGAF who leave them unlocked.

If there are any access points not on residents' land, or any hedges or unfenced boundaries, I'd expect there to be people gaining access through those points and not much that can be done unless there's an unclimbable perimeter fence.

Your solicitor really should have clarified this when you bought the property. Am presuming you don't have a copy of the relevant documentation at home?

Do you have access to this land from your own property?

If it's all fenced off and there aren't any public rights of way then it seems it's wholly private land that you all undertook to maintain?

You need to check the legal documentation for the land. Even if access is through a public estate and maintainence is paid for by the estate the woods could still be publicly accessible land. There is an estate near us where this is the case.

So a further update…. there is a separate linear public open space at a different location. This is a ‘shared garden for residents’ owned privately.