Hampshire County Council Highway Agency Arrangements

Prior to 1974, the administrative arrangements for Hampshire were divided between Urban District Councils and Rural District Councils. The Urban District Councils were unitary authorities being responsible for local highway matters within their boundaries. Hampshire County Council was responsible for highway matters in the rural districts, and also the major A roads in the urban districts.

In 1974 (under the Local Government Act of 1972) Hampshire County Council became the sole highway authority for all of Hampshire (other than motorways and trunk roads, which were the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Transport). However as the urban districts had the experience and records, it was agreed that they would continue to maintain the highway, but on our behalf as `Agents'.

The district councils became either `full agencies', whereby they were responsible for highway matters for the whole of their district, or `island agencies', whereby they were responsible for only the major urban centre. Two districts had no agency powers and therefore had no highway responsibilities.

In May 2002, under local government modernisation, the agency agreement was terminated and all delegated highway powers were withdrawn from the district councils (other than some traffic minor traffic management functions) and highways are now managed directly by Hampshire County Council.

Highway Land Charge Searches

The arrangement for dealing with the highway element of land charge searches followed the above model. The full agencies answered the whole of the Land Charge Search, the island agencies only answered the whole search for the `agency' and passed the highway element for the rest of their district to HCC, the non agencies passed the highway element to HCC for all searches.