Death warrant for scottish trees signed?

[Stephen Blair]

It will be a free for all, mis interpreted law!!

 

The police will be busy with fighting nieghbours and contractors caught in the middle!!

I am staying clear, I have been involved in petty domestic hedge disputes Years ago, just trying to be referee!!! Stuff that!!

 

I may go and buy a stump grinder though and plant some hedging:biggrin:

[daltontrees]

If as the op said, they have adopted the English model I wouldn't be overly concerned, it will mean that the authority can levy fees, they can be quite lumpy and I can't see that going far in the land of the frugal:laugh1:

 

The fees are a bargain, even to the frugal scots. The people who will be using this law the most will consider the fees to be pocket money compared to the benefits and how mighty it will make them feel.

There was quite a lot of debate about the fees. Even a suggestion that the hedge owner should pay the fees. The way I look at it is the applicant is gettting a right to light in perpetuity. Get two lawyers together to draft and agree a servitude right to light and record it in the public register and you won't get any change out of £1000. And why should the poor b***er who has to pay to have his hedge cut down for somebody else's benefit have also to pay for the legal process that protects that person's right in perpetuity?

Thank goodness the suggestion of loser-pays fees was binned. Although without even this much quality of reasoning.

Edited March 31, 2013 by daltontrees

[Al Cormack]

I think what it will come down to is what a court of law defines as a hedge. I can't see any court deciding an 80ft Oak Tree is a hedge or even two of them in row.

[treequip]

I think what it will come down to is what a court of law defines as a hedge. I can't see any court deciding an 80ft Oak Tree is a hedge or even two of them in row.

 

The UK version says its 2 or more trees in a row, nothing for the courts to decide there, and in Scotland if the reports in this thread are accurate.

[Gary Prentice]

A judge defined, in Stanton v jones, “A number of woody plants, whether capable of growing into trees or not, which are so planted as to be in line and which, when mature, to be so integrated together as to form both a screen and a barrier”.

This was in a case under the high hedges act.

[Spruce Pirate]

Two trees are always in a row - straight line from one point to another. To be a true "row" there must be at least three trees surely? Surely therefore the legislation is subject to some form of challenge? Don't know who would be meeting the costs.

 

In all honesty, I can't see this as being altogether a bad thing. There are several examples I can think of where overgrown conifer hedges do form a nuisance and it would not be a bad thing for their owners to have to cut them back, 2m is still a substancial screen after all. Also, all the 80' oaks that are going to start being cut? If they are actually blocking light I would suggest that they are too close to a property anyway, and some form of reduction, or even removal, should be in order. I live about 30' from a 60' oak and a couple of horse chestnuts, about 45'-50', in no way do they block the light or cause nuisance. For the law to be applied does some sort of assessment by a TO or similar not need to be carried out? Will this not weed out the more vindictive and ridiculous demands for trees and hedges to be cut?

 

I have the feeling we may be waiting for case law to take over on this one to get a definitive answer.

[hedgesparrow]

if it is obstructing the light and they want them lowered then lay them do not loose them and below 2mtr high. and have a nice hedge to boot.

[daltontrees]

A judge defined, in Stanton v jones, “A number of woody plants, whether capable of growing into trees or not, which are so planted as to be in line and which, when mature, to be so integrated together as to form both a screen and a barrier”.

This was in a case under the high hedges act.

 

Very very helpful sir.

This is the key though, the Parliament makes the law the courts decide it, in between the Tree Officer has to interpret it and get it right, if he gets it wrong and it is challenged in court the Council is to blame not the Government. I imagine it is tricky to get right with conifers but when you bring in broadleafs it has got to be almost impossible in some cases. The Government can produce all the guidelines it wants but they are not law. Once again, it is for Parliament to make law and for the courts to decide what it means.

There are other examples in the Act where the language does not even make grammatical sense. How is the common man, the citizen of the land, to understand his rights and duties when the law is not even written clearly in his own native tongue? I find that quite depressing for the future of society.

[daltontrees]

Two trees are always in a row - straight line from one point to another. To be a true "row" there must be at least three trees surely? Surely therefore the legislation is subject to some form of challenge? Don't know who would be meeting the costs.

 

 

I am unashamed to be pedantic on this particular point. The Act says that it applies to hedges "which ... are formed wholly or mainly of a row of 2 or more trees or shrubs ..."

So, firstly it has to be a hedge. Next for the Act to apply it has to meet the additional height, barrier to light and number of trees test. The dictionary definition of a hedge suggests a linear form or a boundary position. I think you can view the seemingly stupid opening wording of the Act as a relic of when it only applied to evergreen/semi-evergreens. Before being meddled with at the last stroke by MSPs who had no advice to guide them on the implications of the change because to that point they had accepted the advice not to make the change at all and so had not had to hear a full debate on what the knock-on effect of the change would be.

[Gary Prentice]

What happens now. Does this Act go before a higher body, like our House of Lords, or is the Scottish Parliament the decision maker?

 

Hopefully, in the future, the LA's and Tree Officers can tie up the implementation of this Act, to such an extent that the courts become inundated. Just maybe Parliament then make some alterations.

 

Or just wishful thinking.