This matter comes up when one is looking at signage on roads or highways on private land. Back in 2000, Ms Kitty Vernon, Head of the Traffic Signs Policy Branch at the Department of Transport, said that recent case law strongly suggested that a road or highway was any 'to which the public have access' even if on private land. That meant, for example, that the metric distance sign at Stansted Airport, covered over by an anti-metric activist, though on private land, was covered by the relevant Traffic Signs Regulations and should have been in yards not metres.

I have now found the leading case on this - a 'blockbuster' House of Lords decision in the famous 'Stonehenge - was the assembly legal or illegal?' case; DPP v Jones and Another. The full judgment is at:

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199899/ldjudgment/jd9.../jones01.ht

The following quotes from Lord Hope of Criaghead might be useful:

"At common law the expression 'highway' includes all ways to which the public have access, from footpaths and bridleways to carriageways. It may therefore be said to include a 'road', and in particular a road such as..."

"The certfied question refers to "*the public* (emphasis added in original) highway". The use of the definite article and the addition of the adjective 'public' suggest that a distinction can be drawn between those highways which are public and those which are not. But Section 14A(9) refers simply to a 'highway'...all highways are places to which the public have access in order to exercise the public right and are in that sense "public"...the additon of the word "public" is tautologous..."

T Bennett

Thank you for this important reference.

excellent this is just what I need in my correspondence on the Canal Street Basin and Birmingham City Council.