Highways Act 1951

Highways Act 1951

An Act to amend the law relating to highways

Be it enacted by His Excellency the Governor of Tasmania, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and House of Assembly, in Parliament assembled, as follows:

1.   Short title

This Act may be cited as the Highways Act 1951 .

2.   Interpretation

[Section 2 Amended by No. 19 of 1980, s. 171 and Sched. 1, Pt. 2 ]In this Act unless the contrary intention appears –

highway means a highway over land;

register, used as a verb, means register under the Land Titles Act 1980 .

3.   Creation of highways by the Crown

(1)  Whenever any land of the Crown reserved or acquired for a highway is opened to the public, the Governor shall, before the opening thereof to the public, or as soon as possible thereafter, by proclamation, notify the dedication thereof and the boundaries of the highway.

(2)  A proclamation under this section may, in an appropriate case, be combined with a proclamation under section 7 of the Roads and Jetties Act 1935 .

(3)  The Director-General of Lands shall record every such proclamation in the proper records in his charge and shall notify the council within the district of which the highway affected lies.

(4)  No highway hereafter opened over land of the Crown shall vest in any highway authority, notwithstanding any enactment to the contrary, until the dedication thereof is notified pursuant to subsection (1) .

(5)  No reservation of Crown land or acquisition of land by the Crown for highway purposes shall, of itself, create a highway over that land.

(6)  No use by the public, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, of land of the Crown for passing and repassing shall be deemed to create any highway over that land, except where the land is reserved for the purpose or has been so used instead of land nearby so reserved, in which case dedication shall be deemed whenever it would be deemed in the same circumstances over private land.

4.   Taking land for highways

(1)  The Crown, or any authority empowered to take land for a road, street, or other kind of highway, may, in lieu of taking land, acquire for the public the right to pass and repass over the land by the same process and form, as nearly as may be, as that by which it may take land.

(2)  When a public right to pass and repass is acquired under this section, the Crown, or the authority acquiring the right for the public, may enter on the land subject to the right and carry out works thereon for the more convenient use of the highway, and, from its first entry until completion of the works, exclude all persons therefrom as if it were the owner thereof.

5.   

6.   Licences to embank highways

(1)  [Section 6 Subsection (1) amended by No. 19 of 1980, s. 171 and Sched. 1, Pt. 2 ]Where the owner of land makes a grant in the form in Schedule 1 to the highway authority having the control of an adjoining highway, it shall –

(a) be deemed to create an interest in the grantor's land to which the powers thereby granted are accessory;

(b) enure for the benefit of, and bind, any other highway authority succeeding to the control of the adjoining highway; and

(c) if the grantor's land is registered, be capable of registration as if it were an easement over the grantor's land appurtenant to some estate of the highway authority and its successors in control in the adjoining highway, but shall not be deemed to be an easement for the purposes of section 40 of the Land Titles Act 1980 .

(2)  The Crown, or any highway authority empowered to take land for highway purposes, may acquire the rights flowing from such a grant as if those rights were land.

7.   Easements appurtenant to highways

(1)  Easements appurtenant to land over which there is a highway for the benefit of that highway shall, if the seisin of the highway is severed from the seisin of the subjacent land and vested in a highway authority, be annexed and appurtenant to the highway without any express mention or conveyance.

(2)  Easements appurtenant to a highway shall enure to any highway authority in which the highway is for the time being vested.

(3)  An easement appurtenant to a highway may be granted to the highway authority for (naming the highway) without naming the highway authority.

8.   Easements over highways

[Section 8 Inserted by No. 68 of 1962, s. 45 ]A private right of way of equal or less extent is incapable of existing along with a public right of way over the same land or of reviving on the discharge of the land from that public right of way.

9.   Boundary of highway

[Section 9 Inserted by No. 68 of 1962, s. 45 ][Section 9 Amended by No. 75 of 1973, s. 2 and Sched. 1 ]

(1)  In the absence of evidence to the contrary, a made highway shall be deemed to extend to a distance of 2·5 metres on both sides of the made way, including the earthworks thereof.

(2)  For the purposes of this section, earthworks includes all bridges, drains, culverts, retaining walls, embankments, cuttings, and other works constructed in connection with the highway or necessary for its maintenance.

SCHEDULE 1

Section 6

Form