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[Noddy]

Are the curved bits of round steel bar to seen lying at the side of the road connected with this phenomena?

[Craig T]

There is a two mile long bypass around a local village to me. It was built maybe ten years ago now to ease traffic through the village and that it did well. The road was also built and surfaced in anticipation of new houses being built in the area. It is a two lane road with grass verges of around 15 feet wide on either side.
So the new houses get built and need new utilities running along the road in the name of a large diameter sewer pipes. Now, do you think they dug up the 15 foot wide grass verge and put the pipe under there? Off course not, dug a trench through one lane of the new road for the entire two miles and sank the pipe in there with man hole covers every few hundred metres!

The covers are not level with the road, the patching surfacing is rippled and every time they need to access the pipe, road work signs are out, traffic lights etc!

If you were planning a city from scratch would you seriously put utilities under a road? In my experience around here pot holes are very rarely in the original road surface. They always appear around dodgy repairs from utility companies or drain covers.

Craig

[Grandadrob]

^^^^^^ Yes I can echo that, and all the manholes in the wheel tracks instead of the centre of the Lane.

[22900013A]

There are huge restrictions on where utilities can go, in the example above it is likely the householders (or possibly developer or landowner) own the verge and did not want it digging up (it would probably only take one to object to derail the whole scheme) so the road was the only option as the council would "own" that. Presumably no footpath to use...which would be the normal location.

[Grandadrob]

Those curved bits of steel are probably what’s left of a cyclist... 

[Clifford Pope]

so the road was the only option as the council would "own" that.

They usually don't own it, the roadside householder usually owns it to the centre of the road. But the highway authority has a right of way over the entire width of the highway, from hedge/verge/pavement/verge across to the other side, which includes rights to maintain, set traffic regulations, bury utilities, etc.

So effectively they do own it in all but name, and the householder's ownership is a pretty hollow one.
Except on a rural road deeper I think than 2' 6". But below that depth it is real - we own the land on both sides of our lane, and have buried pipes etc crossing the road. The highways people took great care not to disturb them when re-laying culverts some years ago.

[22900013A]

Well that's why I used "own", as I didn't mean it in the literal sense. "Has responsibility for" might be more appropriate.  In any case whilst your example is generally correct, i understand there can be exceptions which probably explains the example given above of utilities in the road. This is certainly very unusual, and considering the work involved there must be some reason for it. It would certainly be highly unusual to find power cables running under a road unless to cross from side to side. Then again, you can never say never...

[Noddy]

They usually don't own it, the roadside householder usually owns it to the centre of the road

Not usually the case the Highway Authority usually owns hedge to hedge the verge being part of the highway. Depends when and how the highway came into existence. The land owner may have the right of herbage ie cut the grass on the verge for hay. 

[Exile]

They usually don't own it, the roadside householder usually owns it to the centre of the road. But the highway authority has a right of way over the entire width of the highway, from hedge/verge/pavement/verge across to the other side, which includes rights to maintain, set traffic regulations, bury utilities, etc.

So effectively they do own it in all but name, and the householder's ownership is a pretty hollow one.
Except on a rural road deeper I think than 2' 6". But below that depth it is real - we own the land on both sides of our lane, and have buried pipes etc crossing the road. The highways people took great care not to disturb them when re-laying culverts some years ago.

This might help:

https://www.stephens-scown.co.uk/real-estate/who-owns-the-highway/