The draft 'Guidelines' for use of local government officers in their work of enforcing the new law and deciding on the heights to which the hedges should be reduced, have now been published.

What the draft 'Guidelines' give is a very minimal amount of protection from loss of light to house windows, and loss of sunlight to gardens. Many people with problems of damage, unmanageable overgrowth, and loss of use and enjoyment of gardens, would receive little help. We had expected light to act as a proxy, to identify, and bring within the scope of the Law, just about all hedges causing the main problems. As it turns out, unless these 'Guidelines' are very much revised and changed, many of the most extreme sufferers from hedge problems will be left to suffer on. A large proportion of the hedges belonging to long-term victims are already lower than the height to which the draft 'Guidelines' would require them to be reduced.

We are now as worried about these draft 'Guidelines' as we are about the fact that the Law has not yet gone through Parliament. The Government has promised us legislation when there is Parliamentary time available and we are reasonably optimistic that we will get some sort of high-hedge control legislation fairly soon.

We are extemely worried in case the legislation may be of minimal help to us, after all, but fully appreciate that 'The Guidelines', are still in a draft stage and that they will be revised in the light of testing on Hedgeline hedges, and that, after BRE presents its finished recommendations, the DETR have still to decide whether they are sufficent to give Hedge victims the support they need.

Publication of the revised Guidelines is expected this Summer (2001)

The Campaign

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John Taylor's 'High Hedges Bill' ran out of time at its report stage because over one hundred amendments and two new clauses were tabled at the last moment by two members of Parliament, Christopher Chope and Eric Forth. It was apparent to our Parliamentary supporters the day before the Report Stage Reading, that it would be run out of time and many of the Bill's MP supporters, who, despite this, were there in the morning, had left the House by the afternoon. Their Constituency business was too important to allow them to remain in the House all day, when the Bill clearly could not escape running out of time.

The debate ran for over 5 hours. At one stage Christopher Chope spoke for over two hours on the trot. His endless rambling speeches enlarged on numerous irrelevancies, such as the merits of the metric system, the composition of the new House of Lords, much erroneous information and frequently referred to the Bill's own 'draft Guidelines', without ever acknowledging that these Guidelines were a half developed adjunct of the very Bill under debate. He completely ignored the fact that the Bill, as drafted, is a sensitive and flexible Bill, which has considerable cross-party support, is non-political, and based on a Consultation which drew an unusually large number of responses.

A glance at Hansard or at a recording of the debate will confirm what happened to the Bill.

Hansard Report Stage Debate

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Steven Clarke of the DETR has replied on behalf of the DETR, to letters sent on behalf of Hedgeline.

Thank you for your letter to Margaret Becket, Michael Meacher and Bob Ainsworth about John Taylor's High Hedges Bill.

As you know the Government supports the Bill which, although successfully completing its Committee Stage on 21st March was held up at he Report Stage a couple of days later on the 23rd. A further attempt at a Report Stage is scheduled to take place on Friday 27th April. You ask if the Government can help rush the Bill through Parliament before the General Election. Although the Government is supportive of the Bill, I am afraid it is unlikely that Government time could be found to help progress it. This is because there is still a significant number of Government Bills currently before Parliament, and these continue to have priority over other measures.

If the Bill fails to reach the statute book before the election, it would of course remain this Government's commitment to legislate as soon as a suitable opportunity arises.

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Asking for a new law to protect hedge victims is not asking for a new law to brought in where none already operates. There are already old laws which fully protect the rights of the hedge grower, to the exclusion of the rights of his neighbour and prevent the victim from defending himself, (except in those very rare cases where an estate covenant has been set up by some farsighted developer to make all the hedges party hedges).

These old Laws were fine when most people lived with space around them and when people depended on the produce of their trees. But situations have changed. Many people live on tiny plots of land, where every inch may be valuable to them. Laws must surely change with changing societies and it is no longer appropriate for one neighbour to be enabled by the Laws, currently in place, to take away the use of a significant proportion of his neighbour's land, nor is it appropriate for only one party at a boundary to have any say on the height of shrubs and trees which affect both properties.

An overgrowing leylandii or privet hedge, cut once annually, can take away the use over a quarter of a fifteen foot wide garden.

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We have it on the very best authority that Northern Ireland does not believe that they have a high hedge problem and so have no plans to legislate.

Please see The Campaign in Northern Ireland

The High Hedges Bill completed its Committee stage on Wednesday 21 March, without any amendments being made to it.

John Taylor has nominated Friday 27 April as the new date for Report Stage, when it should be the first item of business.

We will get the April date as the General Election will not be in May, because of the Foot and Mouth epidemic but a June election would give little time for its passage through the Lords. Nevertheless we are reliably assured that with the goodwill of all the parties concerned, it could be done.

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The Bill, drafted by the Government and introduced by John M.Taylor MP, has passed its second reading.

We would like to extend our thanks to John Taylor for taking on the Bill and to congratulate him on his success. We would also like to thank Lynne Jones MP and Jim Cunningham MP, who supported the issue today as energetically as they have done over quite a number of years. We would also like to thank the other MPs who so ably supported the Bill in the House and would not like to leave out those MPs, who, we know cancelled prior engagements to be at Westminster today, in case their votes were needed. (Our members, from their constituencies told us). There was, as it turned out, no need to call in extra support as no MP attending the debate voted against the BIll. Highly serious issues apart, the debate, which lasted for over three hours, was interesting throughout.

Hedgeline thinks that this Legislation could work very well. We have been authoritatively informed that, like nearly all legislation, this Bill includes provisions which allow the public body implementing them (in this case local authorities) some discretion, so that they can take account of the circumstances of the particular case in front of them. The Legislation will, however, be accompanied by Government notes of guidance setting out how they think Authorities should exercise the discretion that they have been given. The matter of how much privacy it would be reasonable for a grower to claim at his neighbour's expense, will, be dealt with in the guidelines, along with details of a similar order. The DETR are to be trusted. They have given full support to the movement to relieve hedge-suffering and they are not about to give us useless legislation.

Would members please bear in mind that there is, built into the legislation, scope for revisions, if any unforeseen problems arise.

Please also see the previous entries on the subject, (below), which include links to the DETR Summary of the Bill and to the Bill itself on the Parliamentary website.

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The second reading of the Bill

HIGH HEDGES BILL: Bill to make provision for dealing with complaints about high hedges; and for connected purposes.

The DETR have published a summary of the Bill and they have given us permission to put part of this on our site. See -
DETR Summary of the Current Hedge Bill

It is as well to bear in mind:-

that this Government have stated that they will only accept new legislation which is simple, easy to understand, and proportionate to the problem (i.e. deals with the main areas of the problem).

That getting new legislation is a highly political matter. Even if the Government fully support a Bill as they do this Hedge Bill which they have drafted the views of any potential opponents must be taken into account as a Bill can quite easily be stopped on its way through Parliament.

The Bill outlines a complaints based system, which covers all evergreen species, the minimum qualifying height is 2 metres, so hedges which are not 'monsters', but which are high enough to cause really considerable nuisance in smaller gardens, are included.

• The aim is to have simple tests so that householders and local authorities can use it without specialist input.

• Loss of available light is measurable. All other nuisances which hedges can cause are not measurable in the sense that an objective scale of heights, relative to size of gardens, can be developed.

• It is acknowledged that light is not the only problem, but it tends to be the main one and it can be used to identify the problem hedges, irrespective of what is the main form of nuisance they are causing. A problem hedge will nearly always cut off light whatever other nuisance it causes. The work, at present being commissioned by the DETR, should help establish how far this one measurement encompasses other hedge problems and so can be used as a proxy.

• The scale of light measurements is a new one, being developed now and tested on our members hedges. It has nothing to do with the old much eroded, and virtually unusable, 'right to light' law .

• With this light criterion operating, victims would be able to predict the outcome and it would enable them to negotiate with hedge owners from a position of strength.

The DETR have published a summary of the Bill and they have given us permission to put part of this on our site. See -
DETR Summary of the Current Hedge Bill.

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The Scots Parliament has announced that it will bring in measures for a complaints system to be administered by Local Authorities, who will be given powers to deal with problem hedges.

The legislation will be put through when there is Parliamentary time.

The press release is to be found at:-
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/news/2001/01/se0196.asp

The Scots Campaign

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The DETR have almost finished drafting the Hedge Bill which was promised by the Government in August 2000, as a result of the overwhelming response to their Consultation Paper. There are one or two points in the draft which have not been finally agreed by the Government so the draft is not yet ready for publication.

The Bill now needs to be passed in Parliament and Mr John Taylor, MP for Solihull, is expected to take it through Parliament as a Private Members' Bill with full Government backing. John Taylor came third in the recent Private Members' Bills Ballot and is therefore in a powerful position to take on this task.

It is unlikely that the Bill will actually reach the statute books during this Parliamentary session as the election is likely to cut short its progress, so there will have to be a new start, probably with a new private member, in the new Parliament.

John Taylor is a Conservative MP for Solihull, in Warwickshire. He is a very experienced politician, having been one of the youngest ever leaders of a Metropolitan County Council, a Euro MP, and a Junior Minister with the last Tory Government. We wish him every success with his high-hedge control Bill.

Mr Taylor has a very busy programme and while we would wish to give him any help we possibly can, we must respect the fact that he will not wish to be contacted personally except by his own constituents.

John M. Taylor MP

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Baroness Gardner has again intoduced our the issue of Nuisance-Hedge Control into the house of Lords and has used this platform to stress the urgent need for speedy implementation of new legislation.

As Lady Gardner told us that it was an 'unstarred question, one and half hours maximum'. Her Majesty's Government was asked what action they propose to take following their consultation on 'High Hedges: possible solutions'. Our case was again very powerfully put forward and the cause given very useful publicity, as the debate was fully reported on the the various media Parliament programmes.

The debate on Hansard -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds00/text/01124-05.htm#01124-05_time1

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Jim informs us that his second reading will not take place during this session, (as Parliament will not be sitting on Friday 3rd November), but that it is his personal intention to reintroduce 'his Bill' immediately after the Queen's Speech, quite irrespective of what the Government may be doing.

Text of This Bill.

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