A homeowner has been told to cut his hedge back by just three centimetres after neighbours complained. The council was forced to step to settle the dispute in a Scottish housing estate.
Residents living in an Edinburgh housing estate were unable to agree over how much to chop off the Leylandii hedge which spans the back of their gardens. One homeowner asked East Lothian Council to issue a High Hedge Notice on his neighbours after claiming repeated requests to them to cut down the hedge were ignored, Edinburgh Live reports.
But while the council agreed to issue the notice requiring the owners to maintain the hedge, it introduced a maximum height of 4.34 metres and said recent visits to measure the hedge, which is 18 metres long, confirmed its current height is between 4.37 and 4.5 metres, meaning parts would only need a 3cm trim to meet the new height.
In a report to council, planning officers said that while the applicant argued the hedge blocked out sunlight to his home, the owners of the hedge had said it was required to give them privacy from a first-floor balcony built on the neighbouring property seven years ago. And planning officers confirmed the balcony and french doors were granted permission because of the "high boundary vegetation" which provided the occupants with privacy from an otherwise overlooking balcony.
The report said: "Accordingly, a balance is therefore required to be struck to enable the occupants of The Hawthorns to retain their privacy, while allowing the occupants of Muirfield Park to enjoy their residential property and associated curtilage. The height in which the hedge is required to be maintained will reflect this."
The notice set the maximum height at 4.34 metres ordering the owners to ensure it is no higher and kept at that height in the future.
