Highway Walls

The Council will take urgent temporary action to protect public safety if a highway wall is dangerous. If you want to report a highway wall in a state of disrepair, please contact us.

Generally, walls and fences that surround property and fields are owned and maintained by the land owner. Where these fall into disrepair and become a danger to highway users, we will use, if necessary, use the powers in the Highways Act to press the owner to make permanent repairs.

We will determine whether the wall is owned privately or if it has been adopted by the Council in its capacity as highway authority.

The following types of wall are usually adopted, and we will maintain and repair them:

• walls supporting the structure of the highway - these are called highway retaining walls;
• walls retaining land that has been excavated in cutting to allow vertical alignment of the highway;
• bridge, subway and culvert parapet walls;
• parapet walls providing a safety barrier, for example where there is a steep drop at the other side of the wall;
• highway boundary walls that have been constructed as part of a highway improvement scheme.

Non-highway walls

If a wall is dangerous to persons who are not highway-users, it is treated as a dangerous structure. The Council's Building Control section will take any necessary action.

Last update: 25/01/2012