Who 'owns' the verge?

Yesterday I had one of my regular meetings with Steven Merry from Highways.  Steve 'looks after' the roads in Babergh and he is our first point of call when we have problems, or if we want to spend some of our highways budget.

Given that the Cosford Division stretches from Cockfield in the north west to Elmsett in the south east, taking in Lavenham, Bildeston and Kersey on the way, I have more stretches of road, and thus more problems than most!

I have developed a nice spreadsheet which I share with Steve when we meet, which shows us where we are with various issues in different parishes.

One of the more interesting problems at present concerns a road which is closely bounded by a small river a yard and a half or so to the south of the road.  On the bank between the river and the road are a number of bushes and small trees.  From time to time these grow out across the road, to the annoyance of local farmers who cannot get their machinery through.   When this happens the Parish Council draws it to the attention of the Council and eventually they come along and cut it, if the farmer has not got there first.  When I was elected the Parish Council asked me if I could look into the question of whether the County Council 'ought' to cut these bushes as a matter of course because ' it is their responsibility'.

We have not finally got the answer to this question yet as some 'deep research' will need to be done looking at old maps and so on.  In theory keeping foliage etc. from the highway is the responsibiltiy of the landowner who owns the land over which the road runs.  Often landowners on either side of the road will actually own the land 50% of the way across it.  It is actually very rare for the County Council to 'own' the verge, or indeed the land, although it will keep a stretch of a couple of feet or so from the carriageway clear.  In this case the council is happy to do this, but along most of the stretch this two feet does not include much of the foliage, which stands further back.

So assuming that the land does not belong to the council, who does own the land between the road and the river?  This depends on where the ancient boundary actually runs, along the centre of the road, or along the centre of the river.  In the former case, responsibility for the hedgecutting will rest with the landowners on the south side of the road, and they will also own all the land over which the river runs.  If the latter, then the residents on the north side of the road will own  the land over which the road, and half of the river bed, and it will be up to them to cut the hedges.

I fear that one set of residents won't be very happy when the outcome of Steve's research is known.  Perhaps it would have been better to leave the 'informal' arrangements in place?