Surrey County Council, as highway authority, is responsible for the adoption and maintenance of public highways. It can also adopt private roads, streets or footpaths providing they meet Surrey County Council's adoption criteria.
The following policy is to be applied to requests for adoption of roads as highways maintainable at public expense.
Surrey County Council's approach is to adopt residential roads, streets, footpaths, cycleways and margins if they:
- are constructed to a satisfactory standard and
- connect to an existing public maintainable highway and
- commuted sums are paid where appropriate to provide for ongoing maintenance and
- provided they meet either of the tests set out below:
Roads that:
- serve six or more residential curtilages or equivalent
- OR otherwise have wider public utility.
Adoption will not proceed until full payment of all reasonable administration costs and commuted sums have been received by the county council (as required under Surrey County Council's Commuted Sum Policy).
The form below should be used when requesting the adoption a new road following the advice in the S38 Guidance Pack.
Files available to download
-
Section 38 Application Form (MS Word)
Application form for a S38 agreement -
Section 38 Guidance Pack (PDF)
Basic information for a new road/street adoption agreement
