GordonM

All the trees do belong to Property 4. They have offered 50% contribution to having that entire horizontal row reduced in height by alot. But some of Properties 123 refuse to contribute and are adamant it's property 4 sole responsibility to have them paid for. I personally dont agree with that, but that's only one opinion of 4. re: all the bits of the hedge affect all 3 properties... i probably did say above that the only evergreen portions of this that are >2M are the Laurels and Coniffers. Obviously the preferred outcome for most of the properties here would be that if council were formally brought into this, they'd only order a reduction in height for the evergreens over 2M. The truth is if all the deciduous came down in height too, all 4 gardens would lose alot of privacy, not to mention the shame for wildlife and environmental benefits etc. I do think that'd be the worst outcome personally. I wonder if Property 4 paid just to have the evergreen ones reduced to 2M we could avoid this whole fiasco. All things considered what do you think?

Not at all. It has become a bit of a difficult one because the properties don't agree. But for what it's worth I don't think it's fair to ask Property 4 to pay for all of it. My preference would've been for all of us to split it. Though some of the properties dont want to do that.

thankyou for that really insightful reply. It is our fear of it being a lottery. Exactly as you said, the guidance just isn't clear at all. But it's good to know that the assessment can be split. This is totally eyeballing it, but if one were to use the horizontal portion of that hedge in the image I attached. I'd say its around 65/35 deciduous:evergreen. The height of the laurels is only above 2M where property 2's garden boundary is, but that laurel does run through all the hedge, just mostly at much lower heights. The deciduous trees are mostly 6M or so i'd say. If one were to include the other section of the hedge down the right hand side of Property4, i'd say it's then more like 85/15 deciduous:evergreen. My personal opinion is... if all the deciduous trees were reduced in height should the complaint be upheld, that would be the worst outcome... but my point is that once the council is involved...my fear is that it would be then out of any of the properties control regarding what they do and don't deem to be part of the hedge and acionable. By HHLL do you mean the spreadsheed calculator to determine actionable height? We've used that and indeed the evergreen portions of that hedge for property2 would be actionable based on that. Hopefully not the immediately close deciduous ones though!

I hear you, and thanks for the insight. We are all in dialogue to be fair, and have been in the past. We're just at the point where all parties have tried to agree but all the properties want something different, it's actually been good writing this out. Property 1, 2and 3 all feel they shouldn't have to pay to have the evergreen (laurens and confiers) part of the hedge reduced down to 2M, and feel the guidance and calculator on the gov website does clearly demonstrate that the evergreen portion of that can be complained about with success. But again, it really comes down to how the council see that hedge....So my question does remain, does anyone know if the complaint can be limited to the evergreen portion of that hedge? and if not... what would it mean for the deciduous trees immediately next to them? I

Thanks, We're certain that the evergreens in the corner do qualify for a complaint. As they are a run of more than 1 evergreen hedge and are over 2M in height. As I said above it is those that the complaint would be focused on with the council, (with a fee of £500 no less). I imagine the outcome could only go three ways, and we're just unsure on which. Those 3 being :- The council agree with the complaint and deem only the evergreen portion as the 'hedge' and make an order for only those laurels and confiers to be reduced to 2M height. :- The council deem the entire run (all evergreen and deciduous) as one huge hedge of which there is more deciduous than evergreen, and reject the complaint as it's not "predominately or wholly evergreen" :- The council agree with the complaint and order all the evergreens and deciduous to be reduced down to 2M. We think the last one is least likely. But really unclear on which way it will go. What do you think?

I'm asking if this went the formal route, would the Deciduous trees be affected if a complaint was raised? The complaint would be regarding the height of the evergreen Laurels and Confiers in the corner. But if the council route is taken we're not sure if the outcome would be to reduce the height of those, or reduce the height of all the deciduous trees next to them too. It's not clear to us from the .gov website where they would deem the 'hedge' to start and end.... or whether the complaint can be limited to the evergreens so the deciduous remain untouched. Property1 has been asked to reduce the height of the evergreens and the deciduous and to pay for it all, they have said no.

Hey, we're in the NE of England, i'll update the original body to include this.

Hi all, The reason i'm writing a post is due to a disagreement with the neighbours regarding some trees and hedges in the garden. We're trying to solve it amicably but looking like it may go down the council route. I've asked the council for some guidance to help clarify how rulings would work in cases where a "hedge" is a mix of both Deciduous and Evergreen trees, and where the line would be drawn in cases where the hedge is quite long indeed. Unfortunately the council weren't able to give me a clear answer, so was hoping to get some advice on here aswell. We're based in the NE of England. I've done a crude MS paint image of the layout of the trees and hedges in question to help demonstrate the situation. In this case all trees and hedges belong to Property 4, and Property 2 and 3 have an issue (understandably we think) with the height of the Laurels and Confiers that are above 2M and overhanging the boundary of the land. I appreciate the .gov guidance states that for it to be considered a 'high hedge', it [i] is formed wholly or predominantly by a line of two or more evergreens. [/i] But the bit we're unclear on is; what about any deciduous trees that are part of this hedge too. In this case it is very likely mostly deciduous if you treat the whole hedge as one and i'd imagine a complaint wouldn't be upheld in this case? Or am I looking at this the wrong way? I.e is it possible for the complaint to be limited to the evergreen trees solely? (laurels and conifers) and leave the deciduous trees entirely excluded and untouched? If viewed this way then the 'hedge' is 100% evergreen.... and i'd imagine the complaint would be upheld? What do people think? can anyone shed some light on this (no pun intended :D) or have been through something similar themselves? Image below, for scale reference, the depth of the Laurel is about 3Meters or so, cheers Ged