Overhanging bushes, pavements and prams

Elsewhere

Noggin_1 wrote: »

Thanks for the last 3 posts:)

I don't really grumble about much but I think that since becoming a parent for the first time a couple of months ago I've found somethings have started to worry/annoy me that would have normally passed me by. Maybe I've become a bit over-protective since having a baby and maybe I've started to see things differently.

I live in a densely populated area and I guess I'll just have to be a bit more tolerant.
Bushes, bins, cars, bikes, dogs, cats, weeds, its all go round here:) I just wish folk would have a bit of consideration to everyone who uses the pavements and maybe the world would be a slightly better place:):)

I think you are perfectly right to expect people to be considerate of others.

As for those trivialising the need for hedges to be cut back - villages around here have narrow roads and narrow pavements. At least a couple of times (that I know of) people have been hit by car wing mirrors because they can only use the outer edge of footways which have been narrowed by thick overgrown hedges.

Maybe we should follow the example of the Channel Islands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visite_du_Branchage

(inspection of roads in Jersey and Guernsey to ensure property owners have complied with the laws against vegetation encroaching on the highway)

Spamfree_2

I carry a small pair of secateurs in my pocket for emergencies like the one menioned in the first post. If something like a rose bush is poking over a wall, and could be a danger to me, my pets or little kids, I just snip the offending article off.

tooldle

I sympathise with you OP. There is a hedge / bush on my street that has grown out from a front garden and arched over the pavement. It now covers the full width of the pavement. I walk back and fore to work, and therefore pass this spot daily. The only way to pass the offending foliage whilst staying on the pavement, is to duck under it. It is now so large, that it appears to get closer to the pavement with each passing day.
I too agree that this is an awareness issue. The owners of the house come and go by car, and therefore never have to limbo under the obstacle that is their plant.
I could of course walk on the road. However, roads are for cars and bikes, pavements are for people (to keep them safe from cars).

ally101

i think its a good post, although i might be a little bias as the overgrown hedges are one of my pet peeves, along with people not cleaning up after their dogs!, if you are not going to clean up after it, you shouldn't have got it in the first place!.

its one of those everyday annoyances that sometimes are nice to have a rant about :-).

my nan was in a wheelchair for a few years and taking her down to the shops was like a military operation!, between bumping down ridiculously high curbs, dodging cars that thought they were walkers and being walloped by a hedge that took up all the pavement i'm sure it was a lot of fun for her :-).

I don't know about some of the people I encounter but I was always taught consideration for others, for example you move out the way for prams and wheelchairs as its harder for them than for you. I know the weathers been bad and getting out in the garden has been a struggle but for some people it just seems to be sheer laziness. a hedge that has been out of control for years cannot be blamed on the weather, even in Britain its not that bad!!.

regardless of all that isn't it a nice feeling to do something nice for someone else?, it may be incredibly selfish but to me there's no greater feeling than a nice smile and a thank you from someone you went two seconds out of your way to be nice to!

libra10

I walk my dog along the local highways and byways daily, and can honestly say that I've never seen the grass verges and hedgerows looking so untidy and neglected!

The pavement along a local busy main 'A' road had grown so long, together with nettles and weeds spreading out from hedges, you had to walk along the road if you needed to pass. This grass verge along with others hadn't been cut once this year.

The verge was (at last) cut last week, but the hedgerow has spread so far out, the pavement is still impossible to walk along. Anyone walking with a pushchair would be unable to walk through.

A local grassed area where people walk and sit, is now untidy and unkempt.

I realise that due to the recession, councils are having to cut back and grass cutting seems to be one way they're cutting costs. But they have a duty of care to ensure that pavements are - at least! safe to walk along.

Person_one

lostinrates

libra10 wrote: »

I walk my dog along the local highways and byways daily, and can honestly say that I've never seen the grass verges and hedgerows looking so untidy and neglected!

The pavement along a local busy main 'A' road had grown so long, together with nettles and weeds spreading out from hedges, you had to walk along the road if you needed to pass. This grass verge along with others hadn't been cut once this year.

The verge was (at last) cut last week, but the hedgerow has spread so far out, the pavement is still impossible to walk along. Anyone walking with a pushchair would be unable to walk through.

A local grassed area where people walk and sit, is now untidy and unkempt.

I realise that due to the recession, councils are having to cut back and grass cutting seems to be one way they're cutting costs. But they have a duty of care to ensure that pavements are - at least! safe to walk along.

Hedgerows, as opposed to hedges, are not generally cut this tme of year anyway, and they DO provide a valuable habitat. The weather has encouraged a lot of growth on mature hedges, i see that in my own fields. We follow a nature sentisitive cutting rotation, which means not cutting every year apart from road side. This year even though it would be a non cutting year we will have to. Hedgerows deserve slack, because they provide what we have -taken in swathes of less rural environment.

Grass is growing unbelievably, and while it can be cut in the rain the job is usually less good and wear on equipment greater. I cut some grass on sunday that honestly needs a cut again today.

Noggin_1

Person_one wrote: »

This is exactly what its like, great picture, made me chuckle:rotfl:

Gloomendoom

libra10 wrote: »

I walk my dog along the local highways and byways daily, and can honestly say that I've never seen the grass verges and hedgerows looking so untidy and neglected!

The pavement along a local busy main 'A' road had grown so long, together with nettles and weeds spreading out from hedges, you had to walk along the road if you needed to pass. This grass verge along with others hadn't been cut once this year.

The verge was (at last) cut last week, but the hedgerow has spread so far out, the pavement is still impossible to walk along. Anyone walking with a pushchair would be unable to walk through.

A local grassed area where people walk and sit, is now untidy and unkempt.

I realise that due to the recession, councils are having to cut back and grass cutting seems to be one way they're cutting costs. But they have a duty of care to ensure that pavements are - at least! safe to walk along.

It's not just the recession, it's the bl!!dy weather. I reckon the grass grows a foot overnight.

Where I live we cut the verges ourselves. If we waited for the council to do it, it would never get done.

mummyoftwomonkeys

Noggin_1 wrote: »

Also, if I am walking near a school the cars are parked half on the path and half on the road and I've ended up pushing the pram into the road:eek: surely this isn't right.

picked my son up from school today and there were cars parked on the pavement and by avoiding the road and squeezing by in whatlittle pavement was left my little boy caught his hand on some stinging nettles grrr