Trunk Roads Act 1946

4 Additional powers relating to side roads connected with trunk roads

(1) Without prejudice to the powers of the Minister as highway authority to construct and improve roads, the Minister may be authorised by means of an order made by him in accordance with the provisions of the Second Schedule to this Act—

(a) to carry out, in relation to any road specified in the order, such improvements as may be so specified, being improvements which the Minister considers it expedient to carry out for the purpose of effecting a safer or more convenient junction between a trunk road and any other road ;

(b) to construct any road on a route so specified, being a road which the Minister considers it expedient to construct for the purposes aforesaid, or for the purpose of effecting a safe and convenient junction between a new road constructed by him as a trunk road and any road connected with a road which ceases to be a trunk road ;

(c) subject as hereinafter provided, to stop up either entirely or to such extent as may be so specified, any junction between a trunk road and any other road, being a junction which the Minister considers it necessary or expedient so to stop up in the interest of the safety of persons or vehicles using those roads respectively:

Provided that the Minister shall not make an order authorising him to stop up any such junction unless he is satisfied that a sufficient alternative connection with the trunk road is available within four hundred and forty yards of the existing junction, or unless the order provides for the carrying out of such works as the Minister considers necessary for the provision of such an alternative connection before the existing junction is stopped up.

(2) Subject to the provisions of this section, the execution of any works by the Minister in accordance with an order made under this section shall be deemed for the purposes of the principal Act to be an improvement of the trunk road in connection with which they are executed, and without prejudice to the foregoing provision any such order may direct that, as from such date as may be specified in that behalf in the order, section four of the principal Act (which modifies the Act of 1935 in its application to trunk roads) shall apply in relation to any road proposed to be constructed by the Minister in accordance with the order, or in relation to so much of any road as the Minister proposes to improve thereunder, as if it had become a trunk road on that date.

(3) An order under this section which provides for the improvement by the Minister of any road may direct that any land acquired by the Minister for the purpose shall, as from such date as may be determined by or under the order, vest in the highway authority for that road ; and an order under this section which provides for the construction by the Minister of a road may direct that, as from such date as may be so determined, the following authority, that is to say—

(a) where the road is situated within a rural district, a county borough or a metropolitan borough, the council of the county comprising that district or the council of the county borough or metropolitan borough, as the case may be;

(b) where the road is situated within any other borough or within an urban district, the council of the county comprising that borough or district, or the council of the borough or district, according as the road is or is not designated by the order as a classified road,

shall become the highway authority for the road.

(4) The provisions of section seven of the principal Act (which relates to the transfer of property and liabilities), and the transitional provisions contained in the Fifth Schedule to that Act, shall apply in relation to a road for which any council become the highway authority by virtue of an order under this section as if it had previously been a trunk road, and subsection (4) of section two of this Act shall apply in relation to a road for which the council of a county or county borough become the highway authority by virtue of such an order as it applies in the case of orders made under section one of this Act.