Damage by tree roots

Dogshouse

Apologies if this is not the best place to post but seemed about the closest fit.
At the end of my garden is a private access road to garages for our houses and I am one of those rare people who still uses my garage to put the car in! Well over 20 years ago the people in the road behind decided to plant conifers to shield the fence to this access road. At the time they put trees in they assured us they would keep the trees to a reasonable level of fence height.
Of course they never did and trees are now enormous, the fence is rotting and being destroyed by them and now the concrete access road is being badly damaged by the tree roots.
As far as I am aware the land the trees are planted on is council land - what are my rights?

Shaun_of_the_Dead

Dogshouse wrote: »

Apologies if this is not the best place to post but seemed about the closest fit.
At the end of my garden is a private access road to garages for our houses and I am one of those rare people who still uses my garage to put the car in! Well over 20 years ago the people in the road behind decided to plant conifers to shield the fence to this access road. At the time they put trees in they assured us they would keep the trees to a reasonable level of fence height.
Of course they never did and trees are now enormous, the fence is rotting and being destroyed by them and now the concrete access road is being badly damaged by the tree roots.
As far as I am aware the land the trees are planted on is council land - what are my rights?

You probably have access rights to your garage along the road, no more no less. I have a feeling that may not be your question though.

Maintenance of the road will be down to whoever owns it. Is it council? You say the trees maybe on council ground but not who is responsible for maintaining the road.

Dogshouse

Thank you - yes we have full access and I guess the houses jointly share responsibility for maintenance - my problem is the damage is being done by the trees and unless something is done with the trees it will continue until the road is destroyed and I can no longer use it

sevenhills

Dogshouse wrote: »

my problem is the damage is being done by the trees and unless something is done with the trees it will continue until the road is destroyed and I can no longer use it

Cars are quite rebust when it comes to driving on an uneven surface. If its just a matter of accessing a garage, I am sure the speeds are low.


"Most conifers have rather shallow, if wide-spreading, root systems, making the trunks highly susceptible to wind and surface disturbance. Even the largest conifers are no exceptions, and many of the individual giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in national parks in California are ringed by fences to reduce damage to the roots by the footsteps of millions of admiring visitors."

Davesnave

You dodged Shaun's question of who owns the land the road is on.


That's the most important question here, I think, because they'd be the party who'd need to take action here, as the trees are causing what's called a 'nuisance' to something they own.


Do you have a repairing obligation for the road in your deeds? You wouldn't need to guess this, as it would be stated in your deeds somewhere and possibly a % figure regarding your share of any bills.

Dogshouse

The roadway is concrete and currently the height of some of the areas is 3 inches - currently driveable but I am not sure how much longer if the levels increase at the rate they have this year. My garage is also right on the edge of this roadway and already showing a crack in the floor.

Sorry not trying to dodge questions just find out the process - I do not currently have access to the deeds so apologies for the guess once again but the roadway is just for a few houses so I guess any repairs would fall to them - are you saying as householders we just have to allow the damage to continue and then pay for the damage which is done whilst the trees continue to do more damage?

To be clear these trees are not tiny little conifers - they are over 8m high and the largest has a circumference larger than an average person.

I just want to know what I can reasonably be asking of the council in terms of preventing further damage at the very least as I suspect there is no chance of getting any of the current damage sorted.

Shaun_of_the_Dead

The person responsible for maintaining the road needs to make the owner of the tress aware of the damage. It may be complicated by the fact the council know nothing about the trees and the owner hasn't planted them on their land.

Davesnave

There is some detective work that might be done through searches at the Land Registry (make sure you use their site, not a copycat one with excessive charges for the same thing) but it's possible the land may not be registered with them if it's not changed hands in modern times.


However, sometimes going direct is easier. Every council has a tree officer with access to their records, and you might be in luck if yours is willing to speak with you on this matter.

Dogshouse

Thank you - yes I have tracked down the tree officer and he is coming to take a look. Their initial reply was they would trim them down to 8 metres after September 2020 but I have said I am not happy that that is even coming close to addressing the problem.