Private Roads

Notts_Dave

Notts_Dave

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Dave
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There seems to be a theme going on about where you can take photographs. I have been meaning to ask this for a while so now appears to be the time.

When is a private road a public road?

I work for at a large manufactring plant where cameras are not allowed inside. There is the access road off of a major road junction(A50/A38). This road has no signs saying it is private, has road signs, traffic lights, markings etc and to all intense and purposes looks like any other road. We have a visitors centre open to the public so i guess the public can use the road.

So my question is could someone photograph the buildings from this road lawfully with out our subcontract 5-oh's getting shirty
 
A lot of roads you might think are private arnt. the hospital i used to work at had roads running through the grounds. These were public roads owned and maintained by the council. The land under the bus shelters was owned by the bus companies. so it can be very complex.
 
My simplistic view is that even though it is privately owned and maintained if the public has a right to use it then it is public and the laws of the land apply, ie you could not drive down it after half a botle of vodka. My confusion comes when it is signed as private. For example our local asda has a sign saying "car park owned and operated by Asda" but surely the UK law still applies to most things.
 
Interestingly I cant seem to find any pictures of your place of work on flickr or google images...or anywhere really. Which might suggest they are a bit hot on stopping photographers, that or no one has photographed it! which would suprise me a bit.
 
Jimmy,my problem is that our sub-con security like to clamp people, even those who work there! When i go in on a night shift or finish on nights there are some really good sun rise/set shots with the factory in scene to be had and i thought Toyota, land of the rising sun.


Might just chance my luck.
 
If you're asked to leave then I think you need to leave, but till then unless you're breaking and entering I'm pretty sure it's all fair game. Obviously you can't damage anything and using the pictures to make money without permission may have further implications but as the dr pepper advert says, whats the worst that could happen?

(lots of assumption in my post btw)
 
blimey, a while since I went down the council checking road status but it runs something like this, sorry if there's any inaccuracy or not fully upto date:

Highways department at the county council offices will have a "list of roads", obviously there's the A & B roads but also the UCRs (unclassified county roads) which they declare as the mileage they maintain for which they get funding. This can include unsurfaced roads (green lanes, hence my interest). I found that our council (Leicestershire) had them marked out on maps denoting the extent of the roadwidth, including verges, which occasionally are not where you expect! You have to go to their offices to view the maps. In some areas the problem of determining whether it is a public road is that not all roads get declared on the list because at some time the council may not have wanted to maintain them or has lost the record. So if its on the council's list then fine easy simple there is a public road, if its not on the list there may still be a public road but you're getting into the realms of detailed legal and historical research to determine it. There is also the complication that there may also be a TRO "traffic restriction order" imposed limiting certain vehicles, the council highways dept would advise.

Secondly there may be a ROW (right of way). This is usually managed by the Rights of Way department seperate from the Highways dept at the council. Again, they'll be on maps available to view within the department. For the purpose of vehicular access it would now need to be a "Byway open to all vehicles". The older alternative classification of RUPP (road used as public path) which had a grey yes/no on vehicular ROW status I understand have now all been summarily downgraded to bridleway due to a horsey fan MP who pushed through a private bill last year, shortcutting the ongoing council processes to determine factual vehicular status. For your purposes of pedestrian access with the camera then Byway, Bridleway or Footpath classifications would be fine. Note that in some places these may be on top of any private or public road status. ROWs usually have a coded reference number at the council.

hope that helps
 
Dave, I'm fairly sure Toyota bought the land outright all the way up to the A38 island because it was actually a privately owned airfield prior to the factory being there.
 
erm, have you tried asking your boss for permission?
 
If you're trying to include the factory in your shots then looking at the map on the link I posted earlier you could get close on the road from the village of Burnaston just north of the plant, there are also footpaths (red dashed lines) leading east and west from the end of that road although they would be obscured by woodland for most of their length. There's also the road southeast out of Etwall, its a bit distant but would be looking towards the sunrise over the plant, worth checking.
None of those will have the height of the A38/A50 roundabout but are on a level with the factory with a slight valley between so you may be lucky.

Will you split your commission from Auto Express for the scoop then?

seriously though, why not just ask for permission if you're working there?
 
Thats the place. I am hoping to get some light trails with the factory as a background.

Oh and we have a few next generation Avensis floating round inside hence the tightening of security. The managers dont want to know hence i'm looking to shoot from public land.
 
You'd definitely have to be shooting from either behind the factory (facing towards the island) for sunrise and to be honest I think for sunset you'd need to be North up the A38 a little, problem is the land drops off from there so you'd actually be obscuring the sunset completely by the factory.

I've actually thought about taking pics from that island of the sunrise over the power station, but there are too many electricity pylons in the way.
 
ooo what is the next gen Avensis like? :p Guessing you cant say :(
 
I've only seen the bodyshells (i work in the paint shop) but i like what i've seen so far.
 
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