Blair expands his he(d)gemony...
Discussion
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1633151,00.html
[quote=The Times Online]
Cut the neighbours down to size in the war of the garden hedge. Neighbours will be urged to sort out hedge rows or risk a fine.
This is the week that beheading is back on the statute book.Laws that come into force on Wednesday will demand the garden shears rather than the guillotine as the Government imposes law and order on the scourge of suburbia, the hedge from hell, the growth that turns the best of neighbours into the worst of enemies.
Councils will now have the power to impose fines of up to £1,000 on any owner of an anti-social evergreen hedge who refuses to trim it back to a maximum height of two metres (6ft 6in) when next door complains that its garden has been plunged into shadow, its view blocked and the goodness sucked from its soil. Targeting high hedges is the latest move in Tony Blair’s agenda to bring respect back into the community; it brackets hedges with such other nuisances as graffiti and loud music after dark.
And by far the worst offender is Cupressocyparis leylandii, which grows almost as fast as Jack’s beanstalk at up to one metre a year.
But anti-hedge campaigners, brandishing their tape measures, are furious that councils plan to charge up to £550 a time to pursue complaints.
Hedgeline, the national lobby group formed in 1998 to fight for lower leylandii, expects thousands of victims to file complaints but believes many more with genuine evergreen grievances will be deterred by the high fees.
Clare Hinchcliffe, campaign manager for Hedgeline, said: “What person in their right mind is going to risk £550 unless they are totally obsessed?
[/quote]
D'you think she gets irony? :rofl:
[quote=Obsessed woman who started a support group for big hedge victims]
We don’t see why the innocent victim has to bear the cost of resolving the antisocial problems caused by their neightbour.”
Cotswold District Council is set to top the league table of charges at £550 per complaint, with many other local authorities proposing charges of between £300 and £500 to prosecute hedge hooligans. Kirklees council in Yorkshire plans a fee of only £100, reduced to £20 for those on benefit and refundable if the complaint is upheld.
A spokesman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, said the main aim of the law was to encourage neighbours to sort out disputes themselves rather than risk a £1,000 fine. “Complaints will only be considered where the hedge is evergreen, over two metres high and blocking out light, access or reasonable enjoyment of the neighbours’ property,” the spokesman said.
Leylandii is the result of man’s tinkering with nature and, like Frankenstein’s monster, has come back to haunt him. It was born in South Wales in 1888, the unplanned offspring of a Monterey cypress and an Alaskan cedar. It can grow up to 30 metres high.[/quote]
They just wouldn't let it leylandii! :hehe:
Ace-T :)
[quote=The Times Online]
Cut the neighbours down to size in the war of the garden hedge. Neighbours will be urged to sort out hedge rows or risk a fine.
This is the week that beheading is back on the statute book.Laws that come into force on Wednesday will demand the garden shears rather than the guillotine as the Government imposes law and order on the scourge of suburbia, the hedge from hell, the growth that turns the best of neighbours into the worst of enemies.
Councils will now have the power to impose fines of up to £1,000 on any owner of an anti-social evergreen hedge who refuses to trim it back to a maximum height of two metres (6ft 6in) when next door complains that its garden has been plunged into shadow, its view blocked and the goodness sucked from its soil. Targeting high hedges is the latest move in Tony Blair’s agenda to bring respect back into the community; it brackets hedges with such other nuisances as graffiti and loud music after dark.
And by far the worst offender is Cupressocyparis leylandii, which grows almost as fast as Jack’s beanstalk at up to one metre a year.
But anti-hedge campaigners, brandishing their tape measures, are furious that councils plan to charge up to £550 a time to pursue complaints.
Hedgeline, the national lobby group formed in 1998 to fight for lower leylandii, expects thousands of victims to file complaints but believes many more with genuine evergreen grievances will be deterred by the high fees.
Clare Hinchcliffe, campaign manager for Hedgeline, said: “What person in their right mind is going to risk £550 unless they are totally obsessed?
[/quote]
D'you think she gets irony? :rofl:
[quote=Obsessed woman who started a support group for big hedge victims]
We don’t see why the innocent victim has to bear the cost of resolving the antisocial problems caused by their neightbour.”
Cotswold District Council is set to top the league table of charges at £550 per complaint, with many other local authorities proposing charges of between £300 and £500 to prosecute hedge hooligans. Kirklees council in Yorkshire plans a fee of only £100, reduced to £20 for those on benefit and refundable if the complaint is upheld.
A spokesman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, said the main aim of the law was to encourage neighbours to sort out disputes themselves rather than risk a £1,000 fine. “Complaints will only be considered where the hedge is evergreen, over two metres high and blocking out light, access or reasonable enjoyment of the neighbours’ property,” the spokesman said.
Leylandii is the result of man’s tinkering with nature and, like Frankenstein’s monster, has come back to haunt him. It was born in South Wales in 1888, the unplanned offspring of a Monterey cypress and an Alaskan cedar. It can grow up to 30 metres high.[/quote]
They just wouldn't let it leylandii! :hehe:
Ace-T :)
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