Secretary of State for the Environment Transport and the Regions v Baylis (Gloucester) Ltd; Bennett Construction (UK) Ltd v Baylis (Gloucester) Ltd: ChD 16 May 2000

Land once conveyed for the purposes of becoming a highway, became dedicated for that purpose even though no steps were ever taken for its use for that purpose. The registration of a company as proprietor by the Land Registry did not displace the dedication since the interest was an over-riding one under the Act.
The dispute was about whether the strip of land in dispute, which adjoined the physical surface of the road, had ever been dedicated to the public as part of a highway, and that turned upon the true construction of a written agreement between the then owner and the county council. The adjacent highway (for which the dedicated strip was to facilitate an improvement) had later been designated a trunk road, but that had no consequence for the determination of the dispute. In an otherwise unimpeachable summary of the effect of land becoming part of a highway, Mr Lewison said: ‘The effect of ‘trunking’ a highway is that the highway vests in the Minister (now the Secretary of State). The extent of such vesting is such part of the land as is necessary for the highway authority to perform its statutory functions. It has been described as the ‘top two spits’.’

Mr Lewison QC
Times 16-May-2000, Gazette 31-May-2000, (2000) 80 P and CR 324
Land Registration Act 1925, Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal fromSecretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions v Baylis (Gloucester) Ltd and others CA 16-Dec-2002
. .
CitedLondon Borough of Southwark and Another v Transport for London SC 5-Dec-2018
Question as to the meaning of the GLA Roads and Side Roads (Transfer of Property etc) Order 2000. When the highway was transferred was only the working surfaces, the road surface and the airspace and subsoil necessary for the operation, maintenance . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land, Registered Land

Updated: 10 December 2021; Ref: scu.89097