I rent a house from a local authority and our back garden is about thirty by twenty feet. My neighbour, an elderly woman, owns her house (bought it from council) and lives there alone. There is an enormous ash tree in her garden, about seventy feet tall, about 25ft from my house, and it has spread its branches massively too. It blocks a lot of my light and the fallen leaves in the winter are chronic.
This tree is her pride and joy and she has been very angry on occasion when my children have swung from branches on my side, or even hit the leaves when on their trampoline. She has had a huge bit that sprawled over my side cut back, but no has intention of topping it or getting rid of it.
Frankly it is starting to scare me - we have had bad storms for the past few winters, and I have seen many trees down at those times. The thing would go straight through my roof if it did fall. I am also getting well p-off at the amount of leaves I need to shovel every autumn.
If she refuses to cut it down a bit, do I have any rights? For safety etc. Also, would I be within my rights asking for her DD and SIL to clear the leaves? Her attitude seems to be that it is all her property, so why shouldn't they? I live in Northern Ireland - anyone know the law? All I can find is loads of stuff about lleylandi!