Chop looming for ‘Asbo’ Leylandii

COUNCILS could be handed powers to force residents to hack back overgrown hedges after proposals to change the law to protect householders took a step forward at Holyrood.

Under the bill, authorities would also be able to charge residents for any work to trim hedges, in a move described as a “power of last resort” by SNP MSP Mark McDonald, who is behind the move to change the law.

Mr McDonald wants to give Scots the same legal rights as English and Welsh householders to stop their homes being affected by neighbours’ overgrown shrubs such as Leylandii.

Holyrood’s local government committee yesterday decided that the High Hedges Bill, which has Scottish Government backing, did not need any further public consultation and could now go before the full parliament.

Mr McDonald, speaking at the committee meeting, insisted that he did not want to “punish” hedge owners and claimed that residents would not be asked to keep trees to a “prescriptive” height.

However, he also warned that Scotland’s councils needed the same powers as English councils to intervene where a householder refuses to respond to complaints about high hedges and ignores enforcement action issued by an authority.

The MSP, who represents the North East, said that high hedges can lead to “significant costs” for neighbours over the devaluing of their property, as well as harming their “mental health and wellbeing”.

He said: “Very often the hedge issue is a culmination of a dispute between neighbours. The best way to deal with this is to give Scottish local authorities a power of last resort, a path that’s followed in other parts of the UK.

“This bill is about trying to resolve disputes so that they don’t escalate.

“The ultimate sanction is that the local authority would issue an enforcement notice to a hedge owner, asking them to cut it to a certain level.”

Mr McDonald went on to say that if a resident defied the enforcement notice, councils would “have the power to go in and take action and then recover the costs”, which he said would usually be a few hundred pounds.

The MSP said he had held talks with officials from councils in north-east England such as Hartlepool, where allowing authorities to intervene in hedge disputes had led to 170 initial inquiries but ended up with just seven formal complaints.

The Scottish Government, which is helping Mr McDonald to draft the High Hedges Bill, said the MSP could count on its backing as he introduces the proposals to the full parliament.

A government spokesman said: “This decision is a welcome development in the process of putting legislation in place to ensure everyone with an interest in the issue of high-hedge disputes knows their rights, responsibilities and remedies.

“Mark McDonald can continue to count on our support as he prepares to introduce this bill to parliament, and we will continue to work constructively with him on this important issue.”

Mr McDonald told MSPs yesterday that the change in the law would not lead to a “significant burden” on councils, some of who could be affected by high hedges and trees on their own land.

The latest proposals to curb high hedges come ten years after a similar change to the law from Labour MSP Scott Barrie failed to get through the Scottish Parliament.