A decades-long dispute over a road that nobody has claimed responsibility for has been reignited.
In December, Sefton Council declared the ‘unadopted’ Knob Hall Lane in Southport was not the local authority’s responsibility and said its maintenance and upkeep was down to residents and home-owners on the street.
Disputes over the ownership and responsibility for the road, originally built by the Hesketh family estate, has been going on since at least the 1930s.
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According to Sefton Council’s cabinet member for locality services, Cllr John Fairclough, an agreement made between Southport Corporation and the Hesketh family in 1885 over the road’s maintenance was breached in the 1930s.
The report said this means the local authority has no responsibility for the upkeep of the road.
The council said it has been trying to negotiate with owners on the street to fund improvements which could bring it up to ‘adoption’ standard, after which point the council would agree to look after it, but that this has proved unsuccessful.
According to the report, the council has over the years carried out some work on the road, which leads on to three other cul-de-sacs, in order to make it of a “keep safe” standard.
This has led to some confusion as to whether or not the council had agreed responsibility for looking after it.
However, after taking legal advice and consulting archives as well as attempting an agreement with home-owners, Sefton Council said that it had to conclude the road had nothing to do with them and was the sole responsibility of those living in the street.
This decision was called in by local councillors who said that alternatives had not been considered.
In a report produced ahead of a meeting due to take place on Tuesday, March 8, to discuss the call-in, it states: “Many residents believe that the council have a moral obligation to the residents of Knob Hall Lane that is not being served by this new policy which will see the lane deteriorate even more than it already has and see hundreds of residents, including those living on adopted roads, forced to travel on unsafe and unmaintained roads to access their properties”
Liberal democrat councillors John Pugh, John Dodd and Leo Evans, who instigated the call, in say possible alternatives could include reinstating the policy of maintaining the road to ‘keep safe standard’, assisting home-owners to get funding for its maintenance or even attempting to contact what remains of the Hesketh family in the hopes of securing some form of agreement.
The issue will now be discussed by councillors at a meeting of Sefton Council’s regeneration and skills overview and scrutiny committee on Tuesday, where they will decide whether to send the decision to full council for discussion or to approve the recommendations.
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