Death warrant for scottish trees signed?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

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"

 

 

.

 

well you can include monocultured forests and avenues to that definition, the laws an ass because one can use enterpretation

[Gary Prentice]

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.

 

This is a nice hedge, I don't think laying it would be appropriate.

[treequip]

well you can include monocultured forests and avenues to that definition, the laws an ass because one can use enterpretation

 

Its only going to be an issue if someone lives next to it, how many properties do you imagine that covers?

[daltontrees]

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.

 

Next Royal Assent is needed. Yes, the braveheart independent scots must ask the Queen, 'scuse me ma'am but would it be alright if we have a law about high hedges? Then the Scottish Meenisters have to set a commencement date currently forecast as April 2014. Meantime guidance is to be drawn up for the poor reluctant Council Tree Officers who have to sort out the mess.

The one glimmer of hope, being a surprisingly common phenomenon in my experience, is that the law will be so poorly understood that no-one will want to take it expensively to court and instead everyone will muck through and tiptoe around the difficulties.

Ultimately the test is not so much about what a hedge is but whether and to what extent a group of boundary trees 'adversely affects the enjoyment of the... property... which an occupant could reasonably expect to have'. The lawyers are going to have a field-day with that. I think the wording differs a little from the English Act viz. 'height of the high hedge is adversely affecting the complainant’s reasonable enjoyment of the ... property'. Apart from teh grammar it is s slight improvement on the English wording because it relates to a hypothetical occupier rather than the actual occupier, thus leading to a more reasonable outcome, but nevertheless the measure of what an occupant 'could reasonably expect to have' is going to be very elusive and subjective.

[daltontrees]

Its only going to be an issue if someone lives next to it, how many properties do you imagine that covers?

 

Well, funnily enough one of the concerns expressed by the Tree Officers Association was the situation where forestry-type shelter belts back onto houses and where a forced reduction could kill the trees by topping and destabilise the rest of the stand.

[Gary Prentice]

I can just see yet more TO's caving in to pressure from the Planning and Legal Departments. I'm meeting so many now who, unfortunately, are simply looking for an easy life. I'm not knocking them at all. So many admit they can longer do their job, as they would like, due to other influences- both political and economic.

 

In theory, the High Hedges legislation was becoming a necessity. But, in my experience, it is too often being applied outside the 'spirit' of the law. I don't envy your TO's position after next year at all.

[daltontrees]

My experience of how TOs up here feel is similar to yours. This new law is going to be hard to manage, especially on top of existing pressures and under-resourcing.

There was some talk of the Scottish Goverment creating a Chief Tree Officer position in Edinburgh to try and produce better central guidance. Now, there's a pooisoned chalice, however well intended the idea is.

[treequip]

Well, funnily enough one of the concerns expressed by the Tree Officers Association was the situation where forestry-type shelter belts back onto houses and where a forced reduction could kill the trees by topping and destabilise the rest of the stand.

 

I thought this was following the English model, under that system actions that would kill the tree aren't allowed

[daltontrees]

I can't pretend to have any experience of the English system, but if there is any rule about not killing the trees it isn't in the Act it must be in guidance and a matter of sensible interpretation. Maybe you know how it is with conifers, though, you top a spruce and it gpoes into slow decline. Trees behind it lose companion shelter and are windthrown, domino effect follows and so forth. Not qute killing the trees due to High Hedge action, more like causing them to die.

I expect then the TO will have to walk the fine line between allowing light in and not killing the tree. That wil be hard if the required height reduction is substantial.

[Gary Prentice]

Reading Mynors over the weekend the Local Authority do have some leeway, at least under the English Act.

 

'Councils are required to look at things not from the personal viewpoint of the people involved, but from the objective position of what a reasonable person might expect' (High Hedges Complaints; Prevention and Cure)

 

Factors to be taken into account in reaching its decision on a complaint may include;

the contribution it makes to the amenity of the properties on either side and of the neighbourhood in general

 

Neither the initial action nor the subsequent preventative action can include reducing the hedge to below 2m or removing it altogether. The government has reminded local authorities that to 'remove' a hedge also includes any action that would result in its death or destruction (Letter from ODPM to local authorities, 20th April 2006)

 

Surprisingly we could have been in the same situation as Scotland. It would seem that deciduous trees were almost included in our Act. This provision was the subject of a remarkable outburst in the debate on the clause in the High Hedges (No 2) Bill.

 

'If clause 20 the predecessor s.66 of the 2003 Act is not removed, the Bill could have a more dramatic impact on the English landscape than the combined effects of the great storm, Dutch Elm Disease and the Luftwaffe's bombing. No tree, bush or shrub-whether single or in a group, or in a city, town, suburb or the countryside - will be safe from being cut down to size - 2m - on the complaint of any individual attracted to a desert or concrete landscape. It would be a veritable end to Britian's green and pleasant land, produced by regulations that could not be amended per Christopher Chope MP, Hansard HC, 20 June 2003, cols 645-646

 

So at least one of our Mp's deserved his salary that day!

Hopefully the Scottish Bill will come with similar guidelines to ours.