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Comment by globular-toast | Hacker News Reader

It's not a public place. The signs clearly say that.

I lived in Stratford (London) for ~8 years until last week. There has been so much development there over the time I've been there. It's now effectively impossible to not use private land to get around the area. Even areas that look like a public road sometimes have signs up somewhere discreet saying that it's actually private land that the landowner typically allows transit through.

More of the UK is going this way, especially as new housing developments are not being adopted by local councils, and remain private land and effectively private roads in perpetuity.

In my opinion this is a bad change that should be resisted, and I would protest this in the form of trespass for the reasonable public use I feel is warranted.

New development cannot generally remove public rights of way. They may divert them, but even this is difficult, subject to public consultation, and should be scrutinised by local councils. It's very difficult to remove a public right of way completely in the UK. It does happen occasionally, but it's very unlikely that's what's happening in London.

What's more likely is you are taking advantage of new access opened up by developments that were previously dockyards or something that could never be traversed by the public. Landowners are very careful to make it clear they are not public rights of way lest they actually do become public rights of way, which could have an impact on the value of the land.

As a member of the public, you should campaign for these de facto ways to get made into public rights of way. That is something that can, and should, happen.

The parent comment never used the phrase "right of way" so your comment does not contradict them, though to me it seems to have a tone of disagreement.

"It's now effectively impossible to not use private land to get around the area."

That implies public rights of way were removed. I fail to see any other interpretation of this. If there were never public rights of way then it was always impossible to get around the area.

Unless they mean they themselves live on one of these developments and must therefore traverse private land to get back on to a public highway. If so, ability to access the public highway is protected and living on such a development should always grant rights (and responsibilities) over use of the land (any decent solicitor would flag this up if not).

I think their meaning was something closer to your last paragraph - there was nothing interesting there before so it didn't matter that there was no public right of way.

But now there are things on private land that they are interested in. If you're thrown off a private road on your way to a pizza restaurant that's on it, you wouldn't have the same rights you're talking about for owners (or leaseholders) of properties on the private estate.

But if there is a right of way, it might not matter.

Good question, I suspect that's unlikely .. but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

UK Right of Way is a strong public right but essentially rests on a history of use and established transit from somewhere to somewhere.

Temple Quay in Bristol is reclaimed rail and dockyards, it's private, has a history of commercial operation (no public, only owners and workers) and a chuck of the real estate used to be wet where ships parked up (ie not a lot of historic walking on water just there).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_W...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Quay

Have at it - caveat: IANAL .. I'm not even in the UK (at present).

Pubs are owned privately, they are still public places where there is no expectation of privacy.

The Chihuahua is commonly regarded as the smallest dog breed in the world.

But I fear we've strayed from the question of whether the open areas in Temple Quay have a public right of way or are the private property of the manamgement agency that followed after Castlemore Securities Ltd/SWERDA developed the area.

It's extremely relevant, it doesn't matter who owns it or if it's a public right of way or not. Ultimately in the UK you can walk wherever you like whether the property is private or not. This is clearly a public area, right of way or not, where there is no expectation of privacy and therefore, legally, you can photograph anything you like, nobody can enforce otherwise.

What are we talking about here? There's a difference between what you can do and what you have a right to do. You can walk across any land you can gain physical access to. But in England and Wales you almost certainly don't have a right to walk across said land. In Scotland you do but you are mistaken if you think England and Wales are like Scotland in this regard (sadly).

yes they are private but that allows them to ban parts of the public and actions of the public e.g. banning people, throwing peopl out for misbehaviour - and that latter could inclde taking photos if the owner wanted.

"Photography is not restricted on land if the landowner has given permission to be on the land"

"The landowner may, as a condition of granting entry to the private property, choose to place conditions or restrictions on photography, but the only consequence of failure to comply with these conditions is the photographer being required to leave."

I think the original comment's point is that would violate the presumed easement permitting a right of access.

The permitted right of access is without rights to photograph on said property.

Unless the easement specifically says so, I don't see how that applies.

An easement granting public access to some land cannot possibly list all the rights that are usually allowed in public access that are retained in that case. If the easement doesn't explicitly say what clothes users of the land must wear, is the landowner allowed to exclude those not wearing a blue jumper? That would clearly be a violation of the right of access. How about excluding those that refuse to hop through on one leg? You could think of any number of other silly or more serious conditions that a landowner could arbitrarily impose. Why would saying that access is conditional on not taking photos, a right that is usually allowed on public and even private land (subject to being thrown off of it), not fall into that category?

[Edit: of course we have not seen the wording of the easement or even know for sure that it exists so this is all speculation.]

It says it on the sign.

We're discussing whether the owners have the right to do what the sign says. Saying the sign says so is circular.

On the contrary it is a public place, the sign admits that. 'Access is permitted by the owner' - there is not a right of privacy or expectation of privacy in this place, so it's legal to take whatever photo's you like.

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