AIBU to worry councils are not cutting back roadside trees?

[ZML]

I know it’s the summer but I’m worried about the autumn and beyond.

Due to the heavy rain we had in the winter and spring, the trees along the roads have grown a lot with large leaves on them.

These trees are covering up signs, traffic lights and streetlights.

If councils (visited a few towns and cities recently) don’t cut back trees soon. Then if we have a stormy and wet autumn, there will be flooding in many places as drains can’t cope with the leaves, people being killed or injured as unable to see the traffic lights etc or be hit by a falling branch

None of the trees on my way to work are covered by Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs)
Councils need to know that prevention is cheaper than fixing

Councils are not interested when I try to contact them

YANBU however nothing will change.

80% of the pavement between my home and my children’s school is inaccessible due to overgrowth. Road signs are completely covered and the river is invisible until you fall in (That’s how I learnt where it is)

They cut it back late April and it has since gone mad. They’ll cut it again late August just like every year.
I've given up complaining.
If it bothers you so much, go out with hedge trimmers at 2am.

ObviouSly this will vary area by area, but they have been out all over the place around here, cutting grass verges and other general maintenance.

Obviously some trees and hedges don’t get cut h til the autumn because of birds nesting, of the type of tree or hedge.

It's not legal to cut trees in the bird nesting season

Councils are not interested when I try to contact them

What does that mean? Do they really say nah, not interested?

This. Trees cannot be cut until autumn unless they are clearly dangerous. Having 'large leaves' isnot classed as dangerous. I'd hazard a guess that the leaves are the same size every year.

Birds are still nesting so trees shouldn't be cut back. It's early summer, plants put on growth. They can be cut back in late July or August. Much better to have leaves than a concrete environment devoid of greenery.

I can think of several A roads with mystery road signs that you can't see until you're within meters of them. I'm talking large roundabout/ direction signs concealed by about a decade of unmanaged tree growth. Many of these are probably self-seeded saplings right in front of the signs and it's now major work to address.

Plus umpteen roundabouts that you can not see around because of dense vegetation giving less than 90⁰ view to the right to make a decision about emerging safely.

Councils will jump on any fad that gives them an excuse to cut services. "No mow may" has turned into "let it go wild 2026" round here.

Not to mention this is causing people’s hay fever (.including mine) worse. As the verges were cut before flowers and seed heads were produced. Now these are exposed- more pollen in the air

trees are ignored here. our grass hasn’t been cut yet. it’s june for goodness sake. it’s 3” high.

i know councils are hard pushed but we need to find ways of working smarter. for example the council mower guy walks up our street with the mower but on the pavement not the grass. to get to another grassy area. madness.

Trees and bushes can be cut back a bit for safety even during nesting season. But they have to ensure it doesn't affect any nests as much as possible

Yanbu. We had horrific flooding during storm Babet and I'm utterly convinced it's because the drains etc weren't maintained properly. In fact we had a local almost permanent flood on one road affectionately known as 'the lido'. The Council claimed they couldn't fix it, something to do with farmers land, would take loads of time (years!) blah blah. One day a council person removed some of the mud all over the road and lo and behold they uncovered a blocked drain. It hasn't flooded since :/

With regards to residential overgrown bushes bleeding into pavements/roads -

I have always wondered why councils don't fine the landowner, like they do in France. (Eventually after fines, they come and do it for you and send you the bill!)

It could be a nice little money maker for local goverments, and also solve a problem of people not managing their responsibilites.

Surely there's a middle ground? The council doesn't need to do the full cut back whilst birds are nesting but they could manually trim leaves which obscure signs, lights etc.

Then full cut back with machinery as soon as nesting season over, plus regular road sweeping/drain suctioning to clear leaves which would otherwise block drains.

(I feel your pain. Our last house nearly flooded one winter - water covering drive and lapping at doorstep. Neighbours informed us that the drains used to be suctioned by the council but that had been stopped. Sure enough, when we took rakes and garden forks to the drains further up the road and hauled all the silt/leaves away, the flood drained away. We then had to do that ourselves every year until we moved. We live on a hill now!).

The footpath into the centre of our village isn’t very wide and now it’s virtually impassable. I complained to the local councillor, who contacted the council. Despite assurances that the fo

Agh,

Despite assurances that the foliage, mostly brambles, would be cut back, nothing has been done. It’s dangerous on a busy road.

I love No Mow May. Everywhere looks so lush

I do too in general but I hadn't considered that it may make things worse for hay fever sufferers.

In my rural district, the trees aren’t on verges or other land owned by the council - they are on the private land behind the walls or hedges. So not the council’s responsibility.

The idea that any council has the funds to manually survey, trim by hand, take on responsibility from landowners is just not realistic unless everyone is willing to see an increase in their council tax, and that doesn’t seem to be popular. Here, the farmers are contracted to cut back once a year, and they mow the verges at junctions periodically for safety.

I’m afraid your hayfever is yours to manage.

They certainly can - and do ! I live in a London borough and they are hot on making sure the pavements have proper clearance from hedges and shrubs. Someone I know moaned on and on about being told the council would cut back her very overgrown hydrangea if she didn’t and bill her for the cost and/or prosecute her. The pavement was narrow and was the pedestrian route for two primary schools and a secondary and people were having to step into the road. I spoke to a friend yesterday whilst she cut back the tall shrub( not sure at what point it would be classified as a tree) that had gone berserk during the couple of weeks she was on holiday - it had sent out long new spindly branches with big leaves that made it hard to pass and next to a bus stop. Cutting the new growth to the normal line would not have affected any nesting birds, not that there would have been any in an otherwise open environment.

I was thinking about the (in) visibility of roadsigns too.

But in some areas the local councils/Highways Agency seems to have decided that it's a great idea to stop drivers being able to see at roundabouts. It's not vegetation, they deliberately put fences in the way.

Me too not least because it means that you don't have the constant noise of lawnmowers! Although some people just can't bear any grass being over an inch high and mow their lawns every few days anyway. Eventually you have to cut it because otherwise you wouldn't get a mower through but you can certainly leave for 2-3 weeks.

What does annoy me though is when the council allows weeds to take over pavements to the extent that the pavement disappears.

Oh!! I did not know they did this already! Very surprised

It's a good thing, I think.

Correct. Typical bloody humans don't give a shit about the wildlife as long as their needs are met.

There is an obsession on here where some people seem to hate trees.

The council will do it when scheduled.

The trees are actually preventing flooding in many places.

council’s should be trimming if a blind bend is blocked but they also need to be aware that we are very much in the middle of bird nesting season.

Most jobs will get done come September.