Highways

Section 130 of the Highways Act 1980 was concerned with the protection of the legal rights of the public at large. The rights in question were the rights of the general public to use the public highway. The section related to legal rights of access, not the safety of the highway. It placed no express obligation on the highway authority to remove obstructions, and there was no justification for the implication of such an obligation, especially since express provision was made about the duty of a highway authority to remove obstructions in s 150.

Section 263(1) provided for the vesting of public highways in the highway authority, but the legal interest thereby created was an unusual and limited one. A highway authority was not an occupier of the highway and did not owe to highway users a common law duty of care. Sections 149 and 150 regulated the powers and duties of highway authorities with respect to the removal of highway