Request to trim tree in garden

shays_mum

Not read the whole post, but I do know most councils have a Environmental Officer who do consider lighting & trees. If they got involved via your neighbours, you could be forced to cut them down.

Mojisola

shays_mum wrote: »

Not read the whole post, but I do know most councils have a Environmental Officer who do consider lighting & trees. If they got involved via your neighbours, you could be forced to cut them down.

Not in this case. The EO wouldn't be interested.

longforgotten

Admit I haven't read all the post..........

There are conifer trees in my Mums garden and are no problem to neighbours , but oh how I wish I had kept them in hand years ago. Now they are very big , have spread out alot. If I get someone to hack at them now they will look very ungainly. Considering it may be better to get rid of them entirely and planting something else.

I would suggest giving your tree a regular trim , manage it in some way. instead of ending up with an even bigger job on your hands.

cyclonebri1

longforgotten wrote: »

Admit I haven't read all the post..........

There are conifer trees in my Mums garden and are no problem to neighbours , but oh how I wish I had kept them in hand years ago. Now they are very big , have spread out alot. If I get someone to hack at them now they will look very ungainly. Considering it may be better to get rid of them entirely and planting something else.

I would suggest giving your tree a regular trim , manage it in some way. instead of ending up with an even bigger job on your hands.

I'm going to retort this from a gardeners point of view.

Many folks get the idea that the best way to trim/prune/reduce a leylandii or similar is to chop the top off.

I think most will realise what happens next, the tree explodes sideways and by the end of the next year is twice the width it was previously. Wrong way to do it.

Treat it like a fir, or a trad English tree, lop off the lower branches, give it a trunk, and continue up a ways.

You would be surprised the amount of light that can be let under the tree tops

Kernel_Sanders

Mojisola wrote: »

Even if the neighbour used insured contractors, the contract would be between the neighbour and the contractor but the work would be done in the OP's garden. If the OP had any damage done, s/he would have to go through the neighbour to sort it out. Once the tree was down, the neighbour might not be interested in pursuing a contractor for something that doesn't affect him.

You clearly haven't read or understood the post that you quoted.

moneyistooshorttomention

Mojisola wrote: »

Your neighbours can ask - you can comply or refuse. They cannot make you cut down your trees or keep them to any particular height. The only legal recourse they have is the High Hedge legislation. As you only have one tree, that doesn't apply to you.

!

The likely acceptable height (under that Act) would be 2 metres.

My feeling is that, in those circumstances, I think it might be the case possibly that "two or more trees" would still constitute a hedge even if those trees had different owners.

I would want to check personally if I were the owner of even a single tree to see if it counted as part of a "hedge" if it were in line with another tree or trees (even if those other trees weren't mine) just in case....

But then, on the other hand, one of the first things I would do on buying a house with an intrusive tree or trees would be to remove the tree or trees totally anyway (I think the cost is around £300 per tree, so not exorbitant for just the one tree).

bunberry

Update - contacted the council who confirmed that there's a TPO in effect on this area, so looks like that neighbour might be out of luck.

Next door received a four page long letter :eek: on the same day we did, backdated last year (...eh?)

We'll be writing a note with something along the lines of "TPO in effect, trees in photo not ours, TYVM!"

Thanks to everyone for your advice :T

Biggles

shays_mum wrote: »

Not read the whole post, but I do know most councils have a Environmental Officer who do consider lighting & trees.

Of course, that's the answer! Set light to the trees!

keystone

bunberry wrote: »

Update - contacted the council who confirmed that there's a TPO in effect on this area, so looks like that neighbour might be out of luck.

TPOs are applied to individual trees not an "area".

Next door received a four page long letter :eek: on the same day we did, backdated last year (...eh?)

Post # 30 - rinse and repeat.

We'll be writing a note with something along the lines of "TPO in effect, trees in photo not ours, TYVM!"

I think it would be rash to do that until you have determined absolutly whether or not you tree has a TPO on it. At the moment the evidence seems non-existent. The jog-on part of the message seems appropriate though.

Cheers

ValHaller

bunberry wrote: »

Next door received a four page long letter :eek: on the same day we did, backdated last year (...eh?)

That is the kind of thing which gets right up my nose. I would ignore the senders of the letter, do what I wanted to do with the tree and cooperate with the council if asked.