Gulliksen v Pembrokeshire Council 2002 4 ALL ER 450

Gulliksen v Pembrokeshire County Council in the Civil Court of Appeal Thursday 11 July 2002.

Transcript of the Handed Down Judgment

Ms Gulliksen tripped over a manhole on an estate footpath but sued the Pembrokeshire County Council citing the local authorities’ duties under the Highways Act 1980. The appeal court reversed an earlier decision into his favour but more importantly, the judges viewed the particular estate footpath laid out in 1974, had been ‘dedicated by long and uninterrupted use’ as a public right of way and awarded Gulliksen £3,000 plus costs. This coupled with Schedule 4 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (ch 42) opens the way for those who have been paying service charges on the basis that the footpaths of their estates are private, to claim that providing they are not fenced off and locked up that they are also used by the general public. Then they should be able to recoup the monies that they have paid on the false assumption.
The same might be deemed to apply to playgrounds that are used by members of the public in general and not exclusively by the residents of the estates on which they are sited.
In Westminster this has brought about a stalemate with no estate roads being repaired because the local authority is not prepared to use the general fund to repair estate roads and leaseholders are threatening that if the HRA is used then they will cite this case so as not to have to pay for the works through service charges. If an accident occurs then the local authority may well find that they are not insured given that details of the case have been found on the Zurich Insurance. Zurich Insurance now handle the bulk of Local Authority insurance now that Municipal General Insurance Company are no longer trading.
There may be repercussions for the need for wayleaves. Local authorities have traditionally not charged wayleaves to the utilities supplying blocks of flats on the assumption that all utilities are still in the public sector and they have a reciprocal arrangement whereby they do not charge one another. If the ownership of the land is separate then it may be that they should be charging wayleaves as it is a separate cost centre.

See also commentary on The Legal Executive: Journal of the Institute of Legal Executives.