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Q The owner of a house fronting a street erects a fence near the edge of his front garden, thus leaving a strip between the fence and the street. At what point can the highway authority rely upon the (rebuttable) “hedge-to-hedge” presumption in support of a claim that the strip had been dedicated to public use as a highway?
A Not at the outset. The presumption cannot come into play unless and until it is proved (without the assistance of any presumption) that the owner erected the fence with the intention of separating his private land from the public land: see Hale v Norfolk County Council [2000] EGCS 137, holding, on the facts, that the defendant council had failed to clear the first hurdle.
