Advice On Tall Trees

[Paul2023]

Some advice appreciated.

Bit complicated but here goes;

I live in a cul de sac and have done so for seven year. If you look out of our back garden on the right hand side is our fence. In the other side of this fence there is public walkway, normal alleyway width and runs right along the side of our house.

On the other side of the alleyway there is a fence. Just on the inside of that fence are trees, which gives a natural barrier of sight to our house and the flats. However , the trees are very tall and some of the branches which are very high up are encroached over into our garden. But they are high, as I stated , the only way to cut the branches back and lower the height of the trees is to get professional tree surgeons in.

But these flats are managed by a local estate agent and the landlords are in London, or did when I last emailed them in 2020. I payed to get their address of land registration and they never replied to my letter.

After finding out who owned the flats ( in 2020) I then found out who managed them, after speaking to a man cutting their grass.

Whilst this was going on I contacted the council who advised me to contact the highways agency for our county. They eventually sent a steward over who apparently said the vegetation needed cutting back.

I should add, vegetation from the lower branches of these trees were started to block the alleyway. The management company must have authorised something, because a few weeks later a guy came along and cut back some of the branches and vegetation so pedestrians could access the alleyway again without ducking.

However, this was just a young guy with a chainsaw who only cut branches at head height. They didn’t send actual tree surgeons around to cut the height of the trees.

Over the last two years I’ve sent numerous emails to the estates agents and recently the highways agency again. In my email to the agency who manage the property, I explained everything again, including pictures.

The tall trees block sunlight into our garden significantly. Although I don’t think legally this counts for anything?

However , branches and debris from the tall trees fall into our garden and I’m concerned about the height. What if in strong winds the trees fell? Fall into our house ? Cause death?!

Recently I chased up the estate agents again after not hearing from them for three months. They replied back within a few hours saying that the landlord isnt concerned with the height of the trees but will send a tree surgeon around to take a look..

I won’t hold my breath . Yesterday called the highways to log it. They said they’d send a steward to assess ( again ).Today I sent an email to the CEO of the county’s hiThat’s agency explaining the situation.

What can I do next ? Email the estate agents MD ? Will they care ? Leave a negative but truthful Google review? Contact my local MP? Can they do anything?

These issues will surely get worse if not addressed and I am also worried would make my house hard to sell in the future..

@Geneticsbunny Trees that are too big for their environment need msintenance. In the midddle of a field or huge rural estate, not so much. Many trees are maintained that are a nuisance and too close to houses. Right tree for the right place!

@Paul2023 Sounds like your main complaint is your garden is in the shade, and the other comments are just fluff and nonsense.
Even if they lopped 10’ off the top of the trees, it most likely wouldn’t drastically improve your situation, and they are very unlikely to do that anyway as it risks damaging a perfectly healthy tree.
While I agree with @TizerorFizz that some trees may be inappropriate for the surroundings, these trees were there before you bought and you should have realized or even seen at first hand the shade issue.

Substantially reduce the height of a tree does make a massive difference to a garden - we've done it in ours.

In your position, I'd be offering to pay to reduce it.

@HellsBalls We have trees close to us but reasonable owners. 35 years ago, they were smaller. Our own trees were smaller - we have quite a few. The key is that when they are near houses, they need care. Branches falling off and worse damages property. It’s safer for everyone to maintain inappropriate trees. I’m not sure what this one is. A close up of a leaf would be helpful.

You need to persist with leaseholder of the land and their management company if relevant.

It's the freeholder who owns the land, not a leaseholder (likely to be the flat dwellers)

Council arboreal services might be interested if you think the trees are dangerous, 'health and safety' gets their attention. On the other hand if they come and look and decide they like the trees they could put a preservation order on them making it very difficult for anyone to touch them.

You can complain to the council about trees and hedges around here it costs £700 in advance to make a complaint which I guess deters most people.

Because the trees have grown in the last seven years maybe? Surely the branches growing at height in my gardens boundary is a problem?

Fair comment, but they must be bloody massive trees if they are still growing. Care to post a picture of the tree or a leaf? Or you know what type of trees they are? If they are still growing, they’ll be 1.5 to 2m taller than when you moved in.

This is not in legal and I and I am not commenting in a legal capacity. I believe that right to light laws only cover hedges, not individual trees. These aren't hedge looking, or leylandii type trees that merge and you could reasonably argue are a hedge.

The issue seems to be that you just don't like them and want a sunnier garden. So your options are probably either track down the landlord and pay to have them drastically reduced, you learn to live with them or you move. No one else seems to have a perception of them being dangerous, so you are unlikely to have success down that route.