Can the Highway Agency make your land a highway without telling you

[hairydave]

Please bear with me, this my get a little complicated. My next door neighbour bought her house 3 years ago, the previous residents owned it for 20 years. Next to their house is a small road which along time ago, before any of us remember, was closed off approx 15 ft into it. According to the deeds to my neighbours house this section 15 ft by 15ft section of land is now owned half by my neigbours, half by the high school at the otherside and a small strip down the middle by me to give access to the back of our property. 7 years ago the high school decided to move the entrance of thier car park to their side of the land and had the local council put down double yellow lines around the 3 sides of the land away from the main road, including my neighbours land. Now the previous residents next door didn't use the land for anything so didn't object and let them be. A few years later we moved in and our neighbours shortly after and to start with we parked on the main road (a major A road) until we had 2 cars written off in a couple of months, both during the night by people driving at high speed and not looking where they were going. So our neighbours very kindly said we could park on the land next to their house. Everything was okay for 3 years, we did the maintence on the land as we were told we had to, the school did their side and everybody was happy, the police even use the land to erect mobile traffic cameras. Until 2 weeks ago i go out and i have a parking ticket. After a few enquiries it turns out the council now own the land and have and have declaired it a highway so we cant park there. Is here anything we can do? Also can i fight the parking ticket on the grounds that the land has never been maintained by kirklees including the double yellow lines which are half covered by leaves at our side and almost completley rubbed away at the schools side due to the car park entrance. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Whickerman]

If the land was actually signed over to the occupants, this may well have been a mistake by an overzealous traffic warden. If the council have placed a compulsory purchase on it, they will have notified the owners, ie your neighbours. If not, they need to fight the case to get their land back.

As for you, you need to prove that the land is not a road. Contact a solicitor or citizen's advice

[themas]

Go to land register online & see if you can get the title documents for the whole of the area of land concerned. If it was owned by 3 parties (you, the school & your neighbour) see what is on your titles as well as any separate titel for the land.

I don't think land can be dedicated as a highway without being compulsorily purchased - which involves a procedure that means all 3 previous owners should have been informed and compensated.

[buildersmate]

An interesting one.
Do as Themas suggests and try and get a picture from the Land Registry as to what land is registered to who.
I did some research and as far as I would work out, a landowner can dedicate a piece of land as a highway (if he chooses to) or an Authority can enable a piece of land to become highway - but only after 40 years use by the public. Or it can happen as a result of a compulsory purchase order, as Themas says. The relevant piece of legislation seems to be the Rights of Way Act 1932.
http://www.glass-uk.org/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=236&Itemid=455
It seems the local authority clearly thought it was highway or I do not believe they would have gone around putting yellow lines in place. They have no right to do that on private land.
Check out what the LR says and report back. There are probably other lines of research that could be done for you.