Unadopted road has become impassable

[Leon2782]

A relative's house is only accessible via an unadopted road, which due to potholes and neglect has now become completely impassable except to 4x4s. Ordnance Survey depict the road as being a 'public right of way - footpath', although it is becoming quite dangerous to pedestrians because 4x4s now fling up rocks and bricks as they bounce down the lane.

The landowner is Lord Sutch-and-sutch and he has never paid for the upkeep of the road and has refused to when asked in the past.

Is there any scope to force him to repair the road under the 1980 Highways Act?

"Statutory provision also enables the street works authority to require frontagers to undertake repairs if there is a danger to traffic in a private street. Where the frontagers fail to act as required the authority may execute the repairs itself and recover the costs from the frontagers."

https://tinyurl.com/yygkopql

The road in question only really has two frontagers along a short part of it (houses that need the road for access shown in red):

[des8]

Frontagers includes the owner of land which borders the road, so not only the house owners, but also the owner of fields etc
Presumably the spaces between the properties outlined in red are also owned by someone.

Frontagers must remember that as the road is a public highway they could be liable if due to its poor condition a user suffers injury or damage.

If certain frontagers refuse to contribute to maintenance of the road they might change their attitude when in receipt of a court order.
That would be a cheaper option than having the local road authority arranging its repair and then charging the frontagers

[Leon2782]

Thank you for the welcome!

The fields are owned by the same Lord Sutch-and-sutch and are rented by the farm shown in yellow on the map below.

I've added driveways, so I presume the frontager for each property would be as the colours indicate?

The purple area is adjacent to the garden of the house in blue/purple hatching, so they could be liable for the purple zone and a share of the blue zone?

Presumably every zone is potentially a 50/50 split if there are different landowners on either side of the road? Or would it literally divide down the centre of the road?