Private Roads are highways within the Highways Act
I am referring to the Barsby reference manual on the legal framework for private roads, which is regarded to be a fairly comprehensive statement of the various strands of law.
- highway is ironically not defined in the Highways Act 1980
- as far as the law is concerned, highway has the technical meaning that it is subject to a public right of way
- for legal purposes there are 3 main sorts of private road
1 highways for one or more classes of traffic
2 private roads to which the public have access and so the provisions of the Road Traffic Act and some other legislation apply, but are not highways. Access means that use by the public is tolerated even though there is no actual right. Barriers or notices stating there is no right are relevant but not conclusive (they may not be enforced)
3 private roads which are not subject to public access and are not highways
Road and street have no special meaning in legislation