Matthew White - Highways & Rights of Way

Matthew successfully defended Young v Merthyr Tydfil CBC [2009] PIQR P23: a more modern restatement of the principle in Gautret v Egerton (1866-67) LR 2 CP 371 and McGeown v Northern Ireland Housing Executive [1995]1 AC 233 that, in relation to nonfeasance (i.e. doing nothing, as against misfeasance: positively creating a danger), no duty of care is owed to a person on a highway that is not a highway maintainable at public expense because presence on the highway is as of right rather than as a visitor. He has run the McGeown defence successfully a number of times subsequently.

More recently he was successful for the claimant in Barlow v Wigan MBC [2021] QB 229 in which the Court of Appeal suggested that the McGeown defence is only available if a person is only lawfully on a defendant’s land because of the existence of a public right of way. He thinks it likely that McGeown will be developed further in coming years.

Matthew has a particular interest in cases involving questions of whether a way is a highway, whether a highway is a highway maintainable at public expense, and the legal implications of those decisions, and is ‘go to’ counsel for a number of highway/ local authorities on that issue.

The issue of whether a way is a highway, and for what kind of traffic, has implications not only in relation to duty of care, but also in relation to whether the public are entitled to use and/or seek to clear or improve a way, and is therefore of particular interest to landowners and interest groups seeking to increase available highways, and Matthew deals with these issued in contexts other than personal injury litigation.

Matthew regularly lectures on highway law issues, over the years having been invited to lecture amongst others the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transport and the Institute of Public Rights of Way.  His various pieces on “ways, highways and highways maintainable at public expense” on the Chambers website have been driving traffic for well over a decade.