Dear Department for Infrastructure (Northern Ireland

I would be grateful if you could provide a copy of the pro forma letter template, or automatically-generated letter template, used by DfI Roads to communicate with a landowner or property owner whereby DfI Roads give initial notification prior to a notice being served under the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993.

I would be further grateful if you would confirm that this template letter forms part of DfI's suite of standard template documents, and by what means the template is individualised i.e. the procedure whereby the template would be made case-specific and appropriate citation/s referenced, the source/s of input data to allow same, and finally the route for approval/sign-off of the document and its subsequent issue.

Thank you.
Yours faithfully,

Tony Stewart

Dear Millar, David (ROADS),

Good morning, Davy.

Many thanks for your email.

This enquiry relates to a meeting held on 12 December 2023 at Stroan Road, Dervock, between myself, Mr. Ian Lowe and Mr. Colin Cochrane from DfI Roads Northern Division, and with Mr. Jim Allister KC MLA in attendance, to discuss a matter concerning the extent of the road. At the meeting, a statement (on record) was made by Mr. Ian Lowe to the effect that a letter from DfI Roads to me, dated 20 September 2023, referenced as Stroan Road/2023/001, bearing his signature and suggesting that a non-compliance with the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 had occurred, was "automatically generated". I would therefore request that: -

a) DfI provide a copy of the unpopulated pro forma template document, and confirm the date when said document was first approved for general use by DfI staff.

b) DfI confirm the means by which the pro forma template document is "automatically" populated i.e. by what automatic data input system the base template document would be populated with addressee, site location and citation data in order to create a letter individual and specific to any given case where a non-compliance with, inter alia, Article 50 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 is alleged, apparently without input from DfI Roads staff of appropriate seniority and without first establishing a case. This is of particular relevance given the potential ramifications for DfI of progressing to the issue of an Article 50 to a member of the public without establishing base cause.

I look forward to receiving this information at your earliest convenience, or confirmation that the letter to me was in fact individually generated by Mr. Lowe, or in the event of a null return, I would request that confirmation simply be provided that in fact no pro forma base template of the letter sent to me is in use by DfI.

Thank you again for your time.

Regards,

Tony Stewart

Dear DfI Roads Northern,

FAO Mr. Lowe,

Re. Non-compliance and boundary allegations.

Thank you for your reply dated 15 January 2024. Having considered your comments, I would make the following points: -

1. You persistently and inappropriately refer to "the lay-by". However, as clearly proven by way of the legal definition of the extent of the road taken from your own documentation which was cited and explained by Mr. Allister at the meeting with you and Mr. Cochrane on 12 December 2023, by the historical Land Registry documentation relating to creation of the Folio, by its private use over the last almost 50 years, and by DfI's own road network mapping vector which confirms that there is in fact no maintained lay-by, your claim that the area at the front of my property forms part of the road is untenable. I refer you also to your own fault report map from your own Annex A document above. Note again the absence of any mapped or maintained lay-by, and also that the fault location pin is incorrectly positioned, being placed on the edge of the road, and that my small planting is in fact within my property boundary, some 2m from the road.

Furthermore, by your department's own admission, neither DfI Roads nor any of its predecessors have ever held any Certificate of Adoption for this area. Neither was it created or ever maintained by any Council or roads agency, having an unfinished surface and lacking a base course. The area remains - as it was created within the original Discharging Order i.e. part of my property and in daily use. Its continuous use by my family over the last 50 years is well established and precludes any potential claim that the area might have been continuously accessible by the public or any roads agency.

2. I am somewhat surprised by your claim that your letter to me dated 20 September 2023 was drafted by you based solely on advice from your colleagues who attended the on-site meeting on 7 September 2023. In your previous response dated 22 November 2023, you specifically referred to basing your letter and the allegations contained therein not only on the advice of your colleagues but also on information received from the complainant (see the PIP included in Annex A), information which has been shown to be part of a vexatious pattern of behaviour by the complainant. Unfortunately, prior to your subsequent communications to me, DfI Northern Division staff carried out insufficient checks to establish the veracity of any of the contents of the complaint: -

i. The complainant's claim that sightlines were somehow suddenly impaired on 25 August 2023 to prevent a planning application was entirely false, given that DfI Roads Development Control themselves had reported as far back as 29 April 2021, and again as recently as 2 August 2023, that sightlines were already unachievable due to the crest of a hill and long-established, pre-existing features in the splay areas where they pass through third-party properties (see DfI Roads DC1 Checklists and conditions for applications LA01/2021/0392/O and LA01/2023/0618/RM). Note that DfI Roads, the Planning Appeals Commission and Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council's Planning Department have all specifically referenced the fact that the visibility splays would require third-party land over which the complainant has neither ownership nor control, and splays are therefore a pre-commencement condition.

ii. The complainant's claim that visibility from a field gate was being obstructed was untrue, given that the gate in question is the full width of a field, almost 200ft (60m) away from my property, and from which the small planted shrubs were not even visible.

iii. The complainant's claim that visibility for the access of a neighbouring property might be affected was false since the access of the property in question does not even open onto the Stroan Road.

iv. It is clear that you made no attempt whatsoever to verify the status of the area in question in terms of ownership. Indeed, when it was pointed out to you at the meeting on 12 December 2023 that DfI's own OS-based digital mapping tools show the complete absence of a lay-by, you admitted that you were not familiar with and had not checked the maps, nor obviously had you looked at the mapping provided by DfI Roads in Annex A of their own response to my EIR request, which again showed that the area in question forms part of my property. Note, as pointed out at the same meeting, that I do not refer in this instance to Land Registry mapping - although registered ownership is ad medium filum - but rather to DfI Roads' own road network mapping vector.

v. In addition, you furthered the complainant's false allegations by accusing me of digging up part of the road. You initially cited Articles 50, 59 and 82 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993. However, it had to be pointed out to you by my representatives that Article 82 specifically refers to excavation "which is not on the road". Three issues arise from this. Firstly, by citing Article 82 you in fact confirmed that the area in question does not form part of the road. Secondly, despite more than three months having now elapsed since my request, you have failed to provide any evidence whatsoever of any excavation i.e. the creation of any pit, ditch, drain, watercourse, cave or other hollow, because none such exists. Thirdly, your recourse to issuing a revised allegation has only served to confirm the impression that an agenda of facilitating the complainant by harassing me is apparently being pursued. Furthermore, the complainant's - and your - allegation that the hardstanding area had been "dug up" was also false, given that: -

a) the area in question is my own property as mapped by DfI Roads' own road network mapping vector (see your own Annex A response) and Ordnance Survey mapping, and as established by legal and historical precedent, and

b) the hardstanding surface is in fact intact (see photographs emailed to you on 19 October 2023, to which I again have received no response), and the fact that at both meetings, DfI Roads Northern Division’s staff were standing on the surface.

In summary, none of the claims made by the complainant were properly checked or verified by you or other DfI Roads Northern Division staff. Even having reminded Mr. Fleming of Development Control at the 7 September meeting of the fact that DfI Roads Northern Division themselves had two years previously identified the visibility splays as bring unachievable (DC1 Checklist dated 29 April 2021 for the Outline application LA01/2021/0392/O), and his having co-signed the DC1 checklist form less than a month previous to the complaint (DC1 Checklist dated 2 August 2023 relating to application LA01/2023/0618/RM) yet you and he saw fit to subsequently proceed to accommodate the complainant and issue false allegations to me. This was done despite Mr. Christie's statement (on record) at the 7 September meeting that in the absence of the complaint, DfI Roads would have had no issue with the planting. I note, however, that the advice you supposedly took from your colleagues does not appear to have included Mr. Christie's opinion, since you instead chose to adopt the false narrative of the complainant.

I find that your emails and letter and the false allegations contained therein, and the failure of DfI Roads Northern Division to establish the correct situation, constitute a substantial deviation from the expected standards of process, protocol and performance, and represent actions that I consider to be a failure on your behalf to act in a fair and unbiased manner. Rather than confirm the veracity of the contents of the complaint, you instead amplified the false allegations contained therein to the extent of threatening me with litigation. Furthermore, given the current budgetary constraints on DfI, I am quite frankly astonished at the behaviour of DfI Roads Northern Division in this matter, and in the absence of any rational explanation to the contrary must assume either a wilful determination by them to waste resources, or - as seems to be the case - a concerted effort to facilitate a malicious complaint.

Having shown that your allegations and those of the complainant are baseless, at this point I will now consider any further action by you to constitute at best maladministration, and at worst harassment. Having had no response from you to the points raised at the meeting on 12 December, neither response having apparently been made to Mr. Allister KC, I now presume that your position is accepted as untenable, and that you will therefore desist from further ill-advised waste of DfI resources. Any continuance, however, will now be treated not only as a matter for ruling by a court of summary jurisdiction, but also as discriminatory and vexatious behaviour by DfI Roads.

In the event that you should decide to persist with your allegations in the face of all the evidence, I reiterate that until this matter is resolved in court neither DfI Roads nor any agent employed by them have any right whatsoever to take action of any nature in relation to your allegations, or to enter onto my private property. Any attempts to enter onto or alter my property in the interim will be treated as criminal trespass and criminal damage, with injunctive relief sought againt DfI Roads, and this letter may be used to fix you with costs.

Finally, I note that DfI Roads Northern Division have recently publicly abrogated their responsibilities for both the upkeep of local roads and the provision of road safety measures by claiming that budgetary constraints prevent them from doing so. It is remarkable then that at a time of economic constraint so severe that the most basic functions of DfI Roads are precluded that Northern Division nonetheless has simultaneously managed to find both the manpower and ancillary resources to elevate a vexatious, unfounded complaint to the point where - to date - their response to the planting on my own property of a 12m-long single row of small shrubs which stand behind the line of any adjacent hedge, and more than 2m from the edge of an unclassified rural road, and which - by your own staff's admission - have caused no impediment to the road whatsoever has now been afforded: -

- The attendance of four Northern Division management staff on at least three occasions.
- The coinciding deployment of two lorries and four Roads Maintenance staff to sit for thirty minutes at the roadside while the 12 December meeting took place, with the cover of filling in one very minor pothole at the end of the complainant's father's farm lane when it became clear that they would not be permitted to enter my property.
- By your own account, discussion of the matter at a number of meetings with several Northern Division staff.
- The creation of several emails which have included false statements plus a refusal of access to public record information, a refusal which contravened the principle of presumption in favour of disclosure, with the information having to subsequently be provided to me following the Environmental Information Regulations request.
- The writing of a letter citing non-compliance with the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993, including an allegation which you had to have pointed out to you meant that you had in fact admitted that the area in question is part of my property and not part of the road.
- Engagement with several ancillary DfI offices, including data protection, legal and FoI/EIR staff to provide you with advice.
- The potential for litigation with all costs awarded against DfI, over a 12 metre-long single row of small plants set back from the road on my own property and causing no impediment to road users on an unclassified country road, at a time when Northern Ireland's roads are in such poor condition that they present an ongoing hazard to all road users, when compensation claims have doubled, and when road safety measures - including those for schools - are being restricted or scaled back.

This disgraceful combination of an abject failure by DfI Roads Northern Division staff to properly investigate a report, the subsequent calumny, and the wasting of resources at a time when government departmental budgets are under severe stress seems indeed to indicate either a cavalier attitude to the management of DfI Roads Northern Division's budget allocation and resources, or a more specific attempt at annexation of part of my property in order to facilitate the complainant. In either scenario, I expect this matter to now be resolved by DfI Roads outwith Northern Division, with a particular external focus on rationalisation of the actions taken to date and prioritisation of publicly-funded resources, or rather the failure so to do. Given the lack of response to issues raised to date, I would hope that this matter now be addressed by DfI staff with a working knowledge of maps and rather more than a passing acquaintance with roads construction and legislation. I further expect a formal acknowledgement of the cessation of challenge to my legal property rights forthwith. In the meantime I would suggest that DfI Roads Northern Division focus their attention and resources on fulfilling their statutory duties instead of engaging in actions of an apparently vexatious and frivolous nature which might be construed to have their basis beyond the remit of DfI Roads.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Stewart

Dear DfI Roads Northern,
I am somewhat dismayed that a “Delay” has been put on this request. By law the Authority should have responded promptly by the 8th March. It’s now the 22nd March. Why has my request been delayed?

Yours sincerely,

Tony Stewart