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.

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 such matters.

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 issues in contexts other than personal injury litigation, including public enquiries.

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. He has created a podcast with fellow barrister Jonathan Lindfield dealing with these issues that is here.

His complimentary interests in highways and nuisance has led to him acting in a number of highway trees cases.

Matthew undertakes claims concerning accidents caused by the state of the highway, including tripping claims and claims where the state of the highway results in loss of control of a vehicle. The best-known example of the latter type of case is TR v Devon [2013] EWCA Civ 418; [2013] PIQR P19 which deals with the status of national guidance in highway maintenance and shows that a highway authority can point to what other highway authorities do as evidence that it takes reasonable care: a highway authority version of the Bolam test. Matthew’s highway work includes claims arising out of slippery highways, and he is used to handling SCRIM test data. He deals with claims concerning allegations of failure of winter maintenance when a highway is rendered dangerous by ice or snow.