Neighbour hacking off boughs - conservation area

[JennyForeigner]

Hi all, grateful for your expertise.

We live in a listed house in a conservation area with a beautiful garden and mature trees. We are good tree owners, having them annually checked and trimmed, and have removed unsuitable overgrown Leylandii with roots too close to houses.

We have had new neighbours for a couple of years. We have worked hard to get on well with them but they have upset people by replacing the grass verge at the front of their house with plastic mat without permission, lots of cars and basically being a bit tasteless in a community people move to for its greeness and wildlife. They have massively extended at the back without keeping within the permissions granted. The male half of the couple told me he plans to pave and AstroTurf their garden, and that he dislikes our (rather beautiful) garden because of the 'messy' plants. We have 8 foot fences.

About six months ago he asked if they could take down the overhanging boughs from a line of lovely trees including silver birch on our side of the boundary. He considers these 'untidy.'

I said that we understood it was his right to ask and that if he wanted to work with our tree surgeon would not object. Under a bit of pressure from him I agreed that if he had a preferred tree surgeon we would meet them and provided we were satisfied, allow them to work in our garden. I felt uncomfortable about this afterwards as I felt what he really wanted was to get some dodgy mate around.

Today I saw him up a ladder, sawing through one of the larger boughs from our silver birch. He had given no thought at all to how to do this properly, or minimising damage to the tree. We have been in all day and he didn't attempt to speak to us.

My husband now feels I was unreasonable for asking him why he didn't knock on our door and ask before getting his saw out. He stopped, but was not nice about it and I am now really quite unhappy. I don't believe for a minute that he would have stopped if I hadn't caught him, while we have three very young children and the trees are in a built up bed by the fence where there is a substantial level change. There is a risk that the trees will become unbalanced and unsafe, as well as looking awful.

I am frankly furious, especially as we have been so thoughtful and accommodating.

AIBU to tell him he can do one if he ever so much as mentions working on our land again?

And am I right to think he should have had permission before the work took place as we are in a conservation area? I am not sure about this, but would love it if I could tell him no on this basis. We have always had permission before getting our tree surgeon in, but as we have been taking leylandii out, I'm not sure if this is what the permission is for.

Would really appreciate any guidance people can give. AIBU?

Evening - Thanks for the reports on this thread.

Discussions like this can get a bit heated but we'd like to remind you that Mumsnet is here to make parents' lives easier. While we encourage healthy and robust discussion, we hope that everyone can respect each other and also take a breather from the thread if it looks as though no real progress is being made.

We hope you get things sorted, OP.

Peace and love all round.

Yes thank you, I am very happy to be able to say that I had initially misread that first post and to apologise to Amberred for that misreading. I had noted her initial clarification on the double negative yesterday, and had thought that I had responded thereafter to her other posts, but perhaps I am wrong.

Where we diverge is that it didn't feel significantly more helpful to be exhorted to be kind if Amberred does think our neighbours likely to be in breach. That read to me as saying 'yes, your family probably are the injured parties here, but have you thought about just being nicer about it?'

Given that I have posted several times on the amount of distress and potential impact of this on our home, I'm afraid I found that unhelpful. I'm prepared to be seen as over-sensitive on this however, and perhaps I am.

And now I do hope that we can get back to the technical planning side, because I'm conscious that until posting here we felt we had no option but to accept a series of intrusive and profound changes to our home.

We were wrong, and I hope other people will find this thread and may realise they have more options than they thought too.

Thank you @LivMumsnet. I'm sure we're all more than ready to reset from here.

Where we diverge is that it didn't feel significantly more helpful to be exhorted to be kind if Amberred does think our neighbours likely to be in breach.

PLEASE will you stop making things up .At no point have I suggested that you should be kind .Stop trying to paint me as a poster I'm not - sealioning ,sockpuppeting ,shadowboxing myself ,etc
If you genuinely believe these things please quote my posts where I've done these things .
By all means PM them to avoid further efforts to derail .

He can only cut the parts of the trees which overhang on to his land. He cannot access your land or cut anything over your side of the fence.

Chat to him yourself and explicitly tell him he does not have permission to cut anything your side of the fence. Follow this up in writing or in text

Not in a Conservation Area, he can’t. I wish people would check some basic facts before posting.

@JennyForeigner

get legal advice.
why are you listening to the council
they are no trying to protect there ass

i would go full frontal on them and the neighbour

bullies don’t like power back

if the extension was illegal ie built different to plans then can’t reward him especially as he damaged in a wilful way your trees.

talk to a lawyer

Also it is technically the owner's responsibility to apply for and check relevant permissions are in place. Is there a Historic Buildings officer at county level to whom you can speak regarding the extension and impact?

I agree, this Is a fundamental change to your enjoyment of your house. I would be very angry and would be very focused on making sure it was reverted.