The Welcomes and Uplands Road Association is an unincorporated not for profit body run by volunteers, although the day to day administration of the Association has become so onerous and complex that honoraria are paid to the Secretary and Treasurer.
The main purpose of the Road Association is to maintain Welcomes and Uplands Roads, making it distinct from a typical Residents Association.
If you need to get in touch with WURA, please email welcomesanduplandsroads@gmail.com .
The two roads concerned are unadopted and their maintenance is the responsibility of the residents. Since it is impractical for residents to maintain their own section of the road, this task has been entrusted to a Road Committee since 1928. The original Road Committee changed its name to WURA at an AGM in 2002 .
All residents whose property frontages Welcomes or Uplands Roads and the spur roads of Benthall Gardens, Cumnor Rise, Kearton Close, Maryhill Close, Simone Drive and Pine Close which rely on Welcomes and Uplands Roads for access, are deemed to be members of the Association and are covenanted by deed to share the cost of maintaining Welcomes and Uplands Roads in line with the legal principle of benefit and burden re-affirmed by the Court of Appeal in the case of Goodman v Elwood 2013 and reinforced in 2010 by a standard note in the House of Commons library (PDF file).
The full constitution of the Association can be viewed here (PDF file).
WURA operate under the Legal Framework for Private Roads (5th Edition, 2013), details available here
Croydon Council clarified some of the options available to WURA in this letter (PDF file) in 2004.
The Committee
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Position |
Name(s) |
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Chairman Members
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Colin Brown Michael Lott – Uplands Road representative |
With the retirement of our Secretary after the 2022 AGM and in the absence of a replacement, in spite of efforts to find one, the Committee will only be dealing with core road issues after March 2022. The Road Committee’s focus will be on upgrading all the road surfaces to the standard of Phase 1 (the work completed satisfactorily in September 2021 from Hayes Lane to Uplands Road, 40mm of stone mastic asphalt (SMA) overlay at a cost of £60,000) and collecting sufficient revenue from developers and members to fund the required work.
The remaining programme of work is expected to be as follows:
- Phase 2 Uplands Road to Zig Zag Road £55,000 scheduled for 2022 cash flow permitting
- Phase 3 Zig Zag Road to Kenley Lane £135,000 scheduled for c2026 or earlier if possible
- Uplands Road Work scheduled for 2024 subject to further developer HGV road levy income to cover cost of overlay of SMA c£70,000 of which £50,000 ring fenced
The funding (£50,000) set aside for resurfacing Uplands Road reflects the historic subsidy of the cost of maintaining Welcomes Road paid from Uplands Road surplus revenue. Income and expenditure relating to Uplands Road will be analysed separately in the accounts in future years and a ring fenced sum of £50,000 will be held in a separate bank account into which annual surplus income derived from Uplands Road will be paid each year. WURA has been fortunate that Uplands Road was resurfaced to a good standard some years ago and the cost of maintaining it has been significantly lower than for Welcomes Road.
Some examples of what the Road Committee is responsible for overseeing:
- road maintenance and signage, including speed limit signs
- drain clearance, flood management and leaf sweeps
- requests to members to keep verges clean and, if needed, getting the work carried out and billing the member
- parking issues which impact the road, when members have been unable to resolve the problem in the first instance
- keeping the roads open and dealing with utility companies when excavations and other work is required
- collecting road levies, including from developers, and chasing defaulters for payment
- providing road levy information for house purchasers (as per Form TA6) and answering other solicitors’ queries during the conveyancing process
- negotiating with Croydon Council regarding controversial housing developments with poor on-site parking ratios or other likely adverse impact on the road
- maintains this website
The Road Committee does not get involved with (and members have a duty to do):
- disputes between neighbours of all kinds including those about noise, smoke from chimneys or bonfires, fences, overhanging trees, etc (please see Croydon Council for details on what can be done)
- clearing fallen trees, unless the member is unable to do so
- reporting fly-tipping to the Council
- nuisance parking which should be solved by the members themselves
- keeping hedges, brambles and weeds from growing over the road and verges clear as pedestrian refuges