Sam Amphlett
I am a Legal Director in Lodders’ Real Estate Group. I joined the firm in 2023. My clients include SME housebuilders, business owners and private individuals. I specialise in planning and highways matters including advising on planning and highways enquiries from individuals, action groups, businesses and local authorities, with a particular interest in rights of way issues, biodiversity net gain, drafting and negotiating complex planning and infrastructure agreements and carrying out due diligence on property transactions.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- 2014
Experience
- Warwickshire Legal Services, Warwickshire County Council (2012 - 2023)
Membership
- Warwickshire Law Society
Qualifications
- Legal Practice Course (2010)
- Graduate Diploma in Law (2009)
- Politics & Sociology BA Hons (2008)
Education
- Cardiff Law School (2010)
- College of Law, Birmingham (2009)
- University of Warwick (2008)
6 Contributions by Sam Amphlett
PRACTICE NOTES
Case law on highway authorities’ duties in adverse weather: flooding, drainage and ice under the Highways Act 1980 (England and Wales)
This Practice Note reviews case law on the highway authority’s obligation to maintain highways at the public expense during periods of adverse weather. Those decisions reveal a clear distinction between permanent dangers arising from want of repair and transient hazards attributable to the elements, and confirm that, in practice, an authority is required only to act reasonably and is not expected to achieve daily miracles over the winter months. The duty on every highway authority to maintain any highway maintainable at the public expense becomes more onerous when severe conditions prevail in winter. Ice, snow and flooding all increase the risks on the highway network and each makes the maintenance authority’s task considerably more difficult. The following cases demonstrate the need to balance obligations owed to the public with the sensible use of limited resources:
Flooding
Burnside v Emerson
In Burnside v Emerson, Mr Emerson’s car entered a pool of water, lost control and swung into the path of a vehicle driven by Mr Burnside. The highway authority responsible for the road where the incident occurred was joined as the second defendant in the proceedings...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
Ferry franchises as incorporeal hereditaments: creation, exclusivity, and operators’ duties to carry and rights to curtail service
At common law, highway ferries fall into two types, identified by the routes they take. One type operates between towns or to a specified island, while the more usual type links two named highways, each situated on opposite sides of a body of water. The Highways Act 1980 (HiA 1980) deliberately leaves ferries outside the statutory definition of a highway, yet the common law regards them as comparable to highways, carrying particular rights and obligations. What sets a ferry apart from other forms of highway is:
a ferry is a franchise vested in an individual or a corporation
the power to operate a ferry carries both privileges and duties
the ability to use a ferry is qualified and limited
A ferry as a franchise
The general principle is that anyone with a boat may transport a passenger across a navigable river; however, that principle yields where such use of a boat amounts to running a ferry. The ferry owner enjoys a monopoly, and the courts will protect that exclusivity against competition...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
Highway diversions, deviation rights and closure through natural causes: common law principles and maintenance duties (England and Wales)
This Practice Note discusses the common law on highway diversions
It sets out that the essential feature is movement from A to B, rather than the specific parcel of land over which the right of way is believed to lie, and it also covers highway closure brought about by natural forces. It further explains that where a highway on or close to the coast is destroyed by incursions from the sea, the courts will not require the authority charged with its maintenance to reinstate it to a serviceable condition. While the common law acknowledges the force of the maxim ‘once a highway, always a highway’, there are, inevitably, some exceptions. In R v Secretary of State for the Environment, ex p Burrows; R v Secretary of State for the Environment, ex p Simms, Purchas LJ observed: ‘At common law the rule was and remains “once a highway, always a highway”’...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
Highway Nuisance in England and Wales: Common Law and Highways Act 1980 on Builders’ Works, Scaffolding/Skips, Traffic (racing, stopping), Bridges, and Nuisances from Adjoining Land (Animals, Pigeons, Smoke, Trees)
This Practice Note outlines highway nuisance law, and records that section 333 of the Highways Act 1980 (HiA 1980) expressly preserves common law.
It considers when activities on or over the road may constitute a nuisance, with reference to statute and the common law, including:
builders’ works, scaffolding and skips;
racing and unsuitable traffic;
stationary traffic; and
bridges and beams spanning the highway.
It also surveys likely nuisances arising from neighbouring land, such as:
domestic or farm animals;
pigeons;
smoke and fumes; and
trees.
Common law and statute law
Regarding highways, nuisance at common law substantially overlaps with statutory provisions (principally within the HiA 1980), yet HiA 1980, s 333 specifically preserves the common law. Pratt and Mackenzie’s Law of Highways (21st edition, 1967) describes a highway nuisance as any wrongful act or omission on or near a highway that prevents the public from proceeding freely, safely and conveniently along it...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
Highway Widths and Boundaries: Common Law Tests, Statutory Minima/Maxima, Physical Features, Widening Powers and Vertical Limits (Highways Act 1980, England and Wales)
This Practice Note
This Practice Note sets out that determining a highway’s breadth is essentially a matter of fact. Under the common law, there must be evidence amounting to proof of the least width needed to accommodate the traffic entitled to use it. If such proof is absent, the Highways Act 1980 (HiA 1980) specifies minimum and maximum widths as defaults. The Note also outlines the various kinds of boundaries, explaining that there is frequently physical indication of a highway’s lateral limits, yet each instance turns on its own facts. It further notes that, under the HiA 1980, highway authorities may widen a highway, or build fresh bridges or footbridges. Historically, the breadth of a highway seldom gave rise to dispute. The highway right was (and remains) a right to pass and re-pass; a right to travel from A to B...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
The statutory right to roam: access land, excepted land, public rights, mapping reviews, management and landowner liability under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (England and Wales)
The right to roam over open land shares traits with the ability to move from A to B that defines a public highway, yet it exists solely by statute. It is chiefly contained in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRWA 2000). Unlike highway rights, roaming requires no fixed origin or destination in either use or definition. CRWA 2000 was brought in to clarify and broaden the public’s right to walk across open countryside. The legislation’s assorted regulations and restrictions make plain that walking is allowed, while walkers must respect the rights of other countryside users. CRWA 2000 was brought in to clarify and broaden the public’s right to walk across open countryside. The legislation’s assorted regulations and restrictions make plain that walking is allowed, while walkers must respect the rights of other countryside users.
Access land
CRWA 2000 provides and defines access solely on access land. Many exceptions and restrictions apply to the right to roam on access land...
Local Government
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