Death warrant for scottish trees signed?

[daltontrees]

This will be irrelevant to anyone south of the border but might be of rhetorical interest anyway.

On Thursday the Scottish Parliament approved the High Hedges (Scotland) Bill, Subject to Royal Assent and a commencement date it is law. Fine, you might think, England has had such a law for a few years. Ahh, but not like this one it hasn't.

The law has come about because of a Private Member's Bill. It started off as a carbon copy of the relevant section of the English Antisocial Behaviour Act which deals with evergreen or semi-evergreen high hedges. The Scottish government consulted on this a few years ago. There was a general view that Scotland needed such a law. Fine, all through the committee stages it got widespread support. A few amendments were debated, including whether it should be extended to cover deciduous trees. A delegation from the Isle of Man was brought over to talk about its unsuccesful experience of trying to make such a law work for deciduous trees. In general it was concluded that the amendment should be dropped, for very good reasons. Fine so far.

Then on Thursday the full Parliament decided to change the Bill again to include deciduous trees. And immediately voted to make it new law.

A law that was really meant for Leylandii hedges now also applies to 30m high oaks, limes, ash, sycamore etc. Try cutting one of those down to 2m and managing it as a viable hedge! We should call it the High Hedges (Scotland) Act of Stupidity 2013.

If anyone is in any doubt about how I feel about this, let me be clear. I am horrified by the consequence for trees and their owners, embarrased by our politicians and disgusted at what this all says about democracy.

[Stubby]

It would be in direct conflict with any TPOs and blanket conservation areas , surely ?? ( like you I think it idiotic at best ) ......

[Graham]

Devolution eh! Are they using the general definition of a hedge or is there a definition they will use?

[David Humphries]

I haven't read up on it, but are they not just referring to monospecies deciduous hedges like beech or hornbeam?

 

 

Is it not about just adding the word deciduous to the below ?

 

"A High Hedge is defined in the original Act as a line of two or more evergreen or semi evergreen trees or shrubs that is more than 2 metres above ground level and capable of obstructing light or views"

 

 

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[daltontrees]

I will give you the exact wording. "The act applies in relation to a hedge which (a) is formed wholly or mainly by a row of 2 or more trees or shrubs (b) rises to a height of more than 2 metres above ground level, and © forms a barrier to light." The only difference I can see from the english Act is the removal of the words "evergreen or semi-evergreen".

[Stubby]

I will give you the exact wording. "The act applies in relation to a hedge which (a) is formed wholly or mainly by a row of 2 or more trees or shrubs (b) rises to a height of more than 2 metres above ground level, and © forms a barrier to light." The only difference I can see from the english Act is the removal of the words "evergreen or semi-evergreen".

 

Its another case of people talking and pontificating , then passing laws on a subject they no next to nothing about .

[daltontrees]

As regards TPOs, the Act says "The tree preservation order shall have no effect in relation to the initial action or any preventative action specified in teh high hedge notice". How that is going to work in practice is a mystery, it kind of suggests that the High Hedge issue trumpos the Tree Preservation issue, but it is not that clear. Honestly, of all the ways that they could have stated that 'if trees in the hedge are subject to a TPO cutting the tree back as part of a high hedge is OK', they maybe could have got my 3 year old daughter to word it better. During the call for evidence I suggested in writing that the wording be clearer and that trees in conservation areas be clarified but the committee didn't even look at mine of about 50 other written submissions.

[David Humphries]

Wouldn't want to live next to the Meikleour beech hedge

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[daltontrees]

Its another case of people talking and pontificating , then passing laws on a subject they no next to nothing about .

 

Worse than that, politicians imagine they know everything about it.

[daltontrees]

Wouldn't want to live next to the Meikleour beech hedge

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Indeed! It was even quoted by a lobby group of an example of how deciduous trees can be a barrier to light. The hedge is a national treasure yet if you lived in its shadow you would be within the law to aplly to have it cut down to a height that gave yoyu reasonable light.