help I've moved into a house with gigantic pollarded sycamore trees

[seeyounexttuesluv]

and I had no idea the expense involved in maintaining them!

I did a local authority mutual exchange and these trees are at the back border of the property, 100 feet from my house and some 300feet from the privately owned property behind.

There's 10 of them all 60ft high sk far .... pollarded at some point, but no one told me the costs involved in maintaining them! I can't afford to have them trimmed or removed and I'm dreading a high hedge complaint or potential wind damage . I've just moved in and Im already heightened with stress but I worry that the tree hassle was the main reason these people swapped with me. They had planted now overgrown hedges to the front as well but these can be managed by us as they are 10ft. The guys said he knew nothing about gardening .....i think he may have been lying 😭
please can anyone tell me their experiences of sycamores in the garden, costs and responsibilities . im worrying myself sick in case I get taken to court at some point. I'm working full time but just fall outside universal credit entitlement so i can't yearly manage 5k to 10k for all trees to be pollarded!

Land is not TPO’d, trees are.

If a tree is TPO’d, you need permission from the council for any work. A lot of tree surgeons will make the application on your behalf. No reputable tree surgeon will cut trees without checking if they’re TPO’d first because they could be prosecuted.

Even if you don’t own the land the tree is on (for example, if a TPOd tree is overhanging your garden and the owner won’t cut it back) you can apply for permission but you will have to pay for the work yourself. There is no onus on the landowner to pay and the council cannot make them. If permission is refused, it’s likely because you have asked for work that will be detrimental to the health of the tree. Your tree officer should advise what work can be carried out and you will have to reapply. Hence why you should get a tree surgeon in the first place.

For the love of titty Christ, it’s not hard to find out this information yet people post on MN rather than spend five minutes googling or contacting their council tree officers, and bollocks like this and the persistent ‘throw the cuttings over their fence!’ gets posted.

I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with cutting down trees or pollarding them to within an inch of their lives and ruining them.

They are beautiful and should just be left alone unless there is some imminent danger or they are in the way of new building or damaging something.

Also land can carry protection for any tree on that land I.e. if it is a conservation area - not exactly the same as a TPO but pretty similar in that any pruning of the tree needs a planning application.

I had a quote not long ago for cutting back a large tree, didnt do it in the end. Hence I really doubt Ivanovag. Have also had trees with TPOs.

Trees that get cut back are usually either damaging something or people fear that they will. One of our trees was a nuisance to a neighbour, they were willing to pay to cut it back and the TPO agreed it wouldnt harm the tree. We had not planted the tree, we bought a house with many trees. Some really are too large for suburban gardens and should be able to be removed and replaced with something more suitable.