Railway challenge
 

Hi I am hoping that someone can help given the expertise on this forum and someone will take up this challenge.

We live at 530 Littleworth Road Rawnsley Cannock, Staffordshire, WS12 1JD and a number of years ago contacted the attached companies in relation to the ownership of a strip of land by the side of our home. We was informed at the time that the land is question either belongs to UK Coal or the Railways Authority.

This land forms the top part of an embankment on an old mineral railway line. The issue we have is our neighbour a Shopkeeper who has adopted this land and is using it to store rubbish, scrap metal etc. This section of land is the view we have from the front of our home and as you can appreciate is extremely unsightly.

We have reported the matter to Cannock Council Planning department who are struggling to enforce anything at this time due to the owner saying he has been using it for 10 years plus.

I have attached

1, a copy of a land document with the area in question identified with hatch markings.

2, photos of the land mentioned and a view from our home.

3, Letters from companies dated 2004 which relates to the land by the side of our home (not the land the shop keeper is using) to help identify the plot. however i have struggled to contact these businesses given the length of time passes

We hope that there is budding railways detectives who can track down who owns the old mineral line and establish who are the owners of this unregistered land.

We hope that you can assist and help with our desperate situation and if anyone who takes up this challenge wants any more info please contact.

Kind regards and many thanks given to this consideration

Ian and Vikki

Hi Ian & Vikki.

I'm no expert, but I think this might be useful.
If it formerly belonged to British Railways, and has not been sold off it will be covered by Highways Agency Historical Railways Estate (this used to be called British Railways Board (Residuary) Ltd.), who can be contacted at the following:

Highways Agency Historical Railways Estate
Hudson House
Toft Green
York, YO1 6HP

Tel: 0300 123 5000
Email: [email protected]

If it still belongs to the Coal Board, I'm not sure but this might be the best contact:

The Coal Authority,
200 Lichfield Lane,
Mansfield,
Nottinghamshire
NG18 4RG

[email protected]

I hope you can get this resolved.

Tony

A big thankyou
 

Tony

Thank you very much for the very quick and superb advice, I have mailed Highways England and already have had a response from Rob who was very informative, he has suggested that the land was transferred from the railways to the Coal Board in 1974.
Therefore I have sent the Coal Authority an email using the email you suggested and am awaiting a reply from them.
Once again thank you for time and knowledge and hopefully this may be the start of clearing the mess and improving our view.
Kind regards Ian and Victoria