 Tynnu'n ddim yn gwrs. Felly y dyfodol eich gynhyrchu i chi i amlu syniadau. Rydym ni, wrth gwrs, sy'n gyrfa'r ffordd yw amlwgrethiedigol. Mae'n gyrfa'r ffordd reichon o amlu tiaddodol i'ch gyrhaf i gyrhaf i chi i gyrthodol i chi i gyrhaf i gyrthodol, gwnaethon cymdeithasol yn raith cymdeithasol i chi, a byddwn ni'n gweithio i chi i gyrthodol i chi o mewn ffordd eu hwn. na fawr i gael gŵr. Felly mae'n gwybod ar gyfer gwybod gweithio'r gweithio. Felly mae hi'n gweld i gael gweithio ddangos iawn i gael gweithio'r gweithio. Felly mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Felly, dwi'n golygu'r cwestiynau hynny, mae'n golygu'r wneud i Gweithniadol. Msp, gallwn i'r gweithiol yn ynion o'r gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'n golygu'r gweithio i'r gweithio, ac mae'n golygu'r gweithio ar gyfer gweithio'r gweithio. I'm also pleased to welcome Jenny Gorif, who's joining us, so welcome Jenny. I can invite Jenny to declare any relevant interests that you may have that may be relevant to the remit of this committee. Thank you, convener. Good morning. It's good to be here. I suppose that it's relevant to this committee. I am the parliamentary liaison officer to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. Okay, thank you very much. Good to have you on board. We now move to agenda item two, which is the post-legislative scrutiny of the High Heads of Scotland Act 2013. Today's evidence session will take place in our own table format to allow for a more free-flowing discussion of issues. I welcome everyone. I won't introduce you all. I'm going to allow you to introduce yourself as we go around the table. Before we do that, can I just say that the committee is very keen to find out how this particular piece of legislation has or hasn't worked, has it been, has it got better as it's went along, what still needs to be addressed, none of many people here today have got their own stories to tell in their experience with local authorities and we're keen to hear that. So there will be a degree of formality because that has to come with these proceedings but we're keen to get a conversation between the witnesses present. So that said, we'll do the introductions and we'll get going. So I'm Bob Doris MSP for Glasgow Mary Helen Springburn and I'm the convener of the Local Government and Communities Committee. My name's Pat McLaren. I'm here today representing Scott Hedge. Scott Hedge was the body instituted to the lobby for change in the main to assist victims of unreasonable behaviour related to trees and hedges. I've been working with other members of Scott Hedge for two or three years. During that period I spent a considerable time liaising with the Scottish Executive in the revision of the guidelines to support the act. I'm delighted to be here and hope to give further input and evidence with respect to the act. I'm Pamela MacDougall and along with my husband James were found your members of Scott Hedge in the year 2000. We'd like to pay tribute briefly to Hedgeline which worked on behalf of the rest of the UK and supported us financially until we began campaigning wholly in Scotland to meet the specific needs in Scotland. So after 13 years of campaigning through changes in government, Public Petitions Committee, banner waving, writing letters, listening to countless horror stories from Hedge victims and finally seeing the High Hedges Scotland Act 2013 come to fruition thanks to Mark McDonald's private members bill. I handed over the watching brief at that time to Pat and had a rest. But now here we are again and during the previous time our small campaigning group gained a lot of experiences and statistics and we're actually we're proud to produce this booklet. Some of you might have seen it, it's called a growing problem. Could you tell us more of that booklet perhaps later because we'll just do some introductions just now but you're a superb campaigner because you've took your opportunity to to say a little bit more about your organisation and credit to you but we'll continue with the introductions just now. Thanks, convener. I'm Elaine Smith MSP Labour for Central Scotland and also the Deputy Convener of the Committee. I'm Roger Niven from Inverness. I've been living in our current property myself, my wife, for about 17 years and throughout that time we've had a problem with the high hedge of a neighbour and I've gone through the process without success. I'm Catherine Niven and for now I'm happy to go with what Roger said. We live in the same house and have the same problem. I'm Andy Wightman MSP representing Lothian for the Scottish Green Party. John Bulbot, I'm from Alva in Clickman and Shaw. I have an on-going high hedge problem. We'll talk about it later. I'm Kenneth Gibson, I'm a SNP constituency MSP for Cunningham North. I'm very much supportive of the legislation. I'm very concerned that it is not delivered as well as I believe it should have or could have done and therefore very keen to hear from people directly how we can improve this legislation to make it much more effective in the months and years ahead. Hi, I'm Liz Grant. I was an unsuccessful applicant in East Renfisher. I have a apparently non-hedge but there's no right of appeal and I can't go anywhere and do anything about it so that's why I'm here. I'm Donald Brown. I live in Kelis near Dallas in Murray. I have been through this process only to lose on appeal when my neighbour interfered with the evidence. Again, we can talk about that later. I'm Alexander Stewart. I'm a Conservative member from Mid Scotland and Fife. I'm Donald Chearer. I've lived in the same house for 35 years and had discussions with my neighbour throughout that time. I was present when the act was passed and I was delighted that, at last, it would give me an opportunity to reduce the height of the hedge. I have 28 trees along my boundary. Unfortunately, it was considered not to be a hedge. Hello, I'm Jenny Glearuth, the MSP for Midfaith and Glenrothes. Thank you everyone for those introductions. I'll move to an opening question from Kenneth Gibson, the MSP. Yes, thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the very high quality of the submissions and I realise there's a lot of emotion and passion involved in this particular issue, which blights the lives of unfortunately too many people and couldn't a number of my own constituents. There's two things I'd like to throw open, convener. First of all, before the legislation was introduced, one of the things that Scott Hedge emphasised was that when legislation came in England, the very fact that that legislation existed had a very significant impact in terms of the reduction in hedge disputes. It was argued up to 90 per cent because a lot of people who are guilty of growing huge hedges to the detriment of their neighbours took cognises of legislation, didn't want to end up with court action and therefore acted as one would expect people to do responsibly. I want to ask firstly if people can advise whether or not there has been that impact, regardless of the other concerns and issues that we'll no doubt delve into. The second thing that I would want to throw open is, in this first page of the Scott Hedge submission, it says that it's still apparent that some local authorities are continuing to find ways of evading implementation fairly in the spirit and in the meaning of the act itself, so I'd like to throw that open to our visitors today. The first part, I suppose, was that has there been less disputes in this area due to the legislation? It's effectively been resolved without having to take forward an application because the act exists in itself, as was suggested prior to enactment because that's the experience in England. I'm just really a yes or no to that, but I'm more concerned about the local authorities' alleged evading of the spirit and the meaning of the act. I certainly think that part would be very helpful if you could answer the first part of Mr Gibson's question first of all and then give a flavour of the spirit of the act. It hasn't been upheld and I think there's a number of stories around the table with the people who want to tell practicalities of that part of the class. I think possibly that if you have a simple privet or lilland eye hedge that is very obviously a hedge, then people are being advised by their councils that it's a high hedge and they are reducing it, sometimes never even going through the process of applying for a high hedge. It's the difficult scenarios that are not a simple hedge that we all, you walk down the street, you see a lilland eye hedge, that's a hedge, but if you're living behind a row of trees which is deciduous and evergreen that people think well that's not a hedge, especially our councils, that hasn't been addressed and that's still a problem. In Midlothian there have been three applications which have been adjudicated by the council. All of these were two or three years ago when the act first came in. None of them were successful so the people had paid their fee and got nothing for it and I think other people considering making an application have looked at it and said the council doesn't allow this so we'll not bother. The other side of that is that many people around this table who have non-hedges aren't even registered with the council. They're not noted, the council don't register them anywhere and actually as far as the councils are concerned they don't exist because you don't have a hedge. Now it's very obvious Glasgow council do a pre-application check and they've said that these hedges aren't hedges so we don't know, it's obvious it's not addressing that type of problem. Now for anyone listening could you explain what you mean by a pre-application check? You can, it's quite interesting because some councils will come out to your house and look at it before you put an application in. Highland council will charge for this, other councils don't and if the council tell you that your hedge is not a hedge don't bother applying it's not registered anywhere so we've no actual record of how many applications are in that category. Okay, that's helpful. Emma, to add to this did you want to come in? Well just in response to the effect that the English legislation had it certainly did have a deterrent effect and we were hoping in fact when the act came into being that it would have the same kind of deterrent effect in Scotland. I know from anecdotal evidence that it did but there are no records as far as I know that tell us how many so it would be interesting to know of perhaps from another source because we couldn't find out from the councils. So the legislation has had some impact but we don't know the scale of it but at the end of the day what we're really then having to talk about from now on is the impact or lack of impact legislation on the more severe cases that are affecting everyone around this table. Would it be helpful to move on because it looks a lot of the evidence and one of the issues with it is it seems fairly clear in the legislation how you would define a hedge but apparently not so when it gets to a local authority level where I can see lots of reaction to that can we get some of that on the record please so who would like to go first? No one has yet responded to my question which is right in the front of the Scottish document about evading the act about the councils not following the spirit of the act. You know like you know the councils perhaps dotting a lot of i's and crossing a lot of t's rather than looking at it in a much more flexible way which I think when the legislation was passed we were anticipating. I wonder if Mr Niven is about to put some of that on the record maybe local authorities are bending over backwards to define something as a non-hedge rather than using the powers they have perhaps? Yeah Mr Niven. Thank you. The property that we have the problem with was was currently owned or changed hands a lot a good few years ago before we moved into our property and as we went through the process we managed to find out who the previous owner of the property was and we wrote to them and told them about our problem asked them if they would comment on whether in fact they planted the Leylandia which is mainly Leylandia that we have behind us and whether they planted it as a hedge and I have the letter here which I'll read from says with reference to your question relating to the trees on the boundary between our neighbour's house and ours I have discussed the matter with my wife and we can confirm that when we planted the Leylandia they were planted as a hedge as at the time there was absolutely no screening to that part of our boundary if we hadn't intended the trees to be anything other than a hedge we would not have planted Leylandia but some other species. We went through the application process which our application was refused by the council because they said you haven't got a hedge and refunded our 450 pounds however we then went to a solicitor and he wrote to the council and after many weeks we got a response and the our solicitor had sent this letter from the previous owner of the neighbour's property to the council and the council in summary quote a paragraph here it says your letter refers to the trees being a hedge because they were intended to be planted as such by the previous owner of the land on which the trees were planted the name of the owner while noting the terms of the letter this does not alter the fact that the trees do not in our opinion meet the dictionary definition of hedge referred to in the guidance and that for us sums up where this is going well or wrong if if you have somebody who says I planted a hedge and I wouldn't have planted this vegetation unless it was going to be a hedge and the council can say it's not a hedge I'm afraid the legislation isn't working for us okay thank you is that a similar experience that I was wanting to share um so Liz Grant did you want to enforce that Dr Brown after that I well when you're talking about local authorities kind of fudging the issue my my hedge which I think you've got photographs of and which I've brought some more in which I can pass round which will give people an idea it's a large size I don't know how good your eyes are I'll pass that round but basically the the local authority came out to my property they didn't actually tell me they were coming out I got a phone call from my daughter who was 16 at the time saying this guy's creeping around in the hedge you know I think you should come and see so of course I shot home from work thinking oh gosh you know what's going on um and it turned out to be the council officers and they came into the house they looked at it they agreed it was a blight on the property I've got in the submission they had a copy of our title plan this um showing where the trees were planted and they've said in their decision that it is assessed by the council as not being a hedge but instead a tree belt which forms one of the landscapes features of the golf course the trees would appear not to have been planted as a boundary treatment between the golf course and the site boundary and the planting is not in the form of a hedge now this just flies in the face of everything you'll see in these photos if you want to create a hedge you plant a double row staggered plantation and then you will get a thick impenetrable hedge the captain of the or the former captain of the golf club has recently planted a hedge at the end of the street with beach saplings and it follows exactly the type of thing we have here but I'm talking about sick caspruce that are now 35 meters high you know they're they're massive but I don't know if the council made a mistake in saying they're not on the boundary because we have a private road in front of us but we own the road and we own a bunker a sort of sit-out area on the opposite side of the road but you wouldn't sit there because it's now just dark and flies and everything but these houses were built on the golf course to take account of the views I mean my house used to be called Fairways and I mean that's just a laugh now so I don't feel it's worked for me okay thank you for putting that on the record but you would contend that the legislation as drafted would appear to make it clear that that is a hedge is the interpretation of the legislation rather than the legislation itself I just couldn't understand it because I'm a lawyer and I looked at it and I thought well there's no way this doesn't comply you know it's two reward trees it's in a row I've got two rows in fact it's on the boundary I've printed off the boundary I've had it scaled up I've gone to a lot of expense getting someone who knows about light levels and things which I have no knowledge of and yet it's not it's a landscape feature now where I mean if a council's allowed to call something like that just a landscape feature well anything could be you know okay help that's very help we get to some more of those examples on on the public record dr brown I know you wanted to come in when I was when I was thinking about putting an application in Murray council officials came out to look at my situation and um they were quite sympathetic they didn't talk about about didn't quibble about the definition of a hedge but he did say in passing that he was disappointed that other councils um he knew of where where we're finding ways of avoiding taking any action in these cases now that's that's from a council official who'd obviously networks with other council officials and knows what's going on so he was sceptical about their intentions and they're addressing the problems of the of the act and and taking it forward okay thank you no I'll try and give preference to people who have the opportunity to speak yet so Catherine living bring in now vina um one other one other point with relations at the Highland Council's interpretation of the definition a um they they say that's the two or more trees or bushes forming a boundary our council um points out that we have a there's a scruffy fence along the boundary the property boundary between our property and our neighbours and that forms the boundary so in practice almost every urban hedge that you see is inside someone's garden because that's the only place they can plant them and the council in our opinion is using this as a reason or appears to be using this as a reason for taking no action in that that they don't the trees are not actually on the boundary there's a fence just a meter less than a meter away from them and they they say forming a boundary is the is the is part of the issue so is your is your perception that some local authorities are looking for an excuse not to apply the legislation I'm afraid it is yes okay okay thank you pat mclaren did you want to add in yeah I mean the local authorities are circumventing this act and they are bringing in their own criteria um the excuses they use for these trees not being hedges are they weren't planted at the same time the original intentions were not that of planting a hedge the trees are ornamental part of a larger landscaping feature the trees are a tree built and a landscape feature of a golf course the trees are not managed as a hedge therefore they're not a hedge um the trees are individual specimens that's another reason they used for not calling trees a hedge and the spacing between the trunks is not what you'd expect of a hedge and these are the these are things and and they've brought in their own criteria I mean Aberdeen have brought in their own criteria for deciding their criteria for deciding whether a hedge is a hedge not referring back to the act which is what they should refer back to always is back to the law not the guidelines okay and not their own guidelines okay that's helpful couple of msp colleagues want again but I'm going to give preference to you know Mr Bulba I want you to come in next um Mr Bulba I'll take you in next I'm just making the point that I want to give preference to the those giving evidence to msp so I know you wanted to to come in at that point I was just going to add something while there were two things first of all most of the the uh the criteria for deciding whether a hedge is or is not a high hedge they seem to be very very subjective I mean what what does it mean when you say something was planted is with an ornamental intention you could do anything can be an ornamental intention I could put a wheelbarrow in my garden and say it's an ornament so I mean it's I don't think we're going to get anywhere until we work out a more scientific or objective way of assessing whether a high hedge is a high hedge or not some kind of I don't know some kind of a photographic method of looking at the percentage of light blocked in any particular given area of hedge so you could just slide a imaginary rectangle along the hedge and say if you're blocking light by more than 20 or 30 percent that part of the hedge is high and has to be thinned out and then nobody can argue with it because you come up with a number and it's not down to a councillor's decision or an intention as to whether it was planted to be a hedge or not so that was to do with the definition of a high hedge going but the other thing about the reluctance of local authorities to implement the high hedge act effectively which I believe they are not doing at all is I think it probably comes down to well I suspect it comes down to council funding it's because moving in and slicing down a high hedge in accordance with a high hedge act which is allowed in the act by the way I don't think that has ever been done in Scotland correct me if I'm wrong I don't think the law has ever been effective in that way they've never ever moved in and taken punitive measures and any kind of legislation which is as toothless as that is never going to work if I thought I could get away without paying a parking ticket merely by ignoring it I might be tempted to do so and so would everybody else in our cities would be gridlocked I think the law has no teeth and the reason is I don't think there's any sinister plot by the county councils I think it's just that cutting down a high hedge is expensive yeah 30 foot trees employing contractors it's difficult and it's dangerous work it can be several thousand pounds so that council if they implement that if it sends in contractors they'll have a five thousand pound hole in their budget and they're very nervous of then having to pursue the owner through the courts the owner will say he's got no money and he's ill and obviously all the excuses that people will use to avoid paying fines okay that's all I have to say bring others in a second that that's quite helpful maybe at some point we have to explore that the fees and fine structures within the act to make it self-financing at a local authority level so we can get the real kind of intention of local authorities in relation to this now just to kind of move the debate along a bit welcome back to a couple of MSPs and indicated they wanted to to ask a few questions I wanted to give them the opportunity and I might roll them together actually I'll take Andy Wightman and then Alexander Stewart and then all our witnesses back in for for some more comments and thank you community that's been extremely useful as an opening I mean it seems to me reading the legislation the legislation does not define a hedge it says that the act applies in relation to a hedge referred to in this act as a high hedge which and then it goes on for those three qualifications so first of all it has to be a hedge if it's not a hedge you can't even get into a bnc so it seems to me that the the the problem here is that the definition of a hedge isn't in the act it has to be a hedge first and then it has to be a hedge that meets these criteria whereas the term hedge is not defined and it's attempted to be defined in guidance which is understand from your evidence changed from an Oxford dictionary definition to another definition so is that at the core of this problem that the act actually defined a hedge now it may not define a hedge in a way that you would like but if it actually defined a hedge there'd be less uncertainty as to what hedge was and wasn't any vegetation any vegetation which act is a a deternt to your light is a hedge under the terms of the act now can I just clarify then because I think it was scott hedges that helpfully provided this this extract so it does say in acting correct for all that that a hedge is or that is a it's formed holier mainly by a row of two or more trees or shrubs b rises to height of more than two metres above ground level and c forms a barrier to light that would appear and whether that's legally watertight or not is another matter but it would appear to the non lawyers among us that that's that's a definition but yes of course I went to my library and I printed off the definition of hedge from the oxford english dictionary it runs the 15 pages the first item is the one which was originally quoted in the guidance and it is simply a row of bushes or low trees hawthorn and privet but it goes on to other meanings the third meaning which is far more generic and more appropriate in this case I believe says it said of a line or array of objects forming a barrier boundary or partition now that basically can include any two trees whether they're in a line or an array or a group there is no need to change the definition in the act what needs to be done is make sure that the councils understand that the oxford english dictionary defines a hedge very very widely and I'll read that just once more it said of any line or array of objects forming a barrier boundary or partition it is hugely wide and that's the oxford english dictionary would they be right in saying that we shouldn't be expecting the local authorities to go to a dictionary definition to find a way of not applying the law they should perhaps go to what's on the face of the bill and the guidance and they should be reminded of that fact would that not be I should really let mr rightman explore this further my apologies mr rightman well this is my observation that reading the act it does not define a hedge it says the act applies in relation to a hedge undefined which and then it goes on to say these are the criteria that a hedge has to meet but first of all it has to be a hedge and there's nothing in the legislation that says what a hedge is and therefore you go to a dictionary your dictionary is very wide but that dictionary definition is not in the law so that in itself is open to interpretation that's how or indeed you could go to ministerial guidance on the matter exactly that which would instead mr brown did you want in sorry dr brown well I was just going to say that I think we're perhaps even over complicating the issue I think to interpret this and to interpret the act but it says the act defines a high hedge as a hedge that is you could just say a high hedge is or a hedge or anything formed and just go on to the on to the actual description of what the act intended to cover because all the talk of hedge I think is what's actually confusing you know what what parliament to me intended was that the three things that it actually tries to define are the things that are covered and that and that's it I don't think after the guidance was changed in any event I don't think they really wanted to narrow it down too too much further okay dr brown will take you next and I haven't forgotten about you alexander stewart just a brief comment it seems to me that the act was intended to alleviate people's living in the shadow and surely that should be the focus of this not the whatever's causing it it could be a you know just because something is not planted as a hedge doesn't mean to say it doesn't let light through you know this is we're getting down the wrong track here I think it should be does it affect your like your your amount of light reaching your property in either direction one direction it's like hitting you other direction it's it's the view and focus on that rather than on you know what plants cause cause the problem thank you very much all to alexander stewart and then all our witnesses back in yeah thank you canina we've already touched on the difficulties of the definition the guidance and the criteria and I think that it's very useful to hear that because what the act as Andy Wightman has indicated there was an assumption maybe made initially when the act was drawn up that assumption is now being played out across local authorities you are all now potentially victims of that process and and I'd like to tease that a little bit the length of time it's taken in some of your cases to progress this as to how the local authority tackles it I think that you've made a very valid point about light and the whole aspect of how that can be interpreted or misinterpreted by a local authority to get out of the situation that you find yourselves in and and what I see from this is that there's more people getting out of the situation than actually having the act developed and processed in a way that was trying to protect and ensure that the high hedge or the obstruction that they have is removed and what I've heard from the majority convener is that it isn't working these individuals find themselves in a situation that is appalling in some situations we've seen some of the photographic evidence and that then is being misinterpreted by local authorities the length and breadth of Scotland and something requires to be done to give them the opportunity as residents to tackle the situation so you know but for me I think the whole assessment process needs to be managed and needs to be assessed if the assessment process was managed and assessed in a proper fashion then it might alleviate some of the problems that's very helpful and wonderful if it's a willful misinterpretation by local authorities though might might might be the thing before I take in Mr Gibson a panel might do go wanting to come in very briefly on a personal level about time when we put in our request for a high hedge notice we didn't hear anything apart from the fact that it had been just acknowledged two months later we phoned the council to say how is it progressing he said we're working on it but we're very busy in this department which was a bit con descending really because it was big in our lives at the time however they sent out an official eventually but my point is that the first time they sent out the official it was an obvious we we're actually surrounded on three sides by the easily land out and the man hung and horn said yes you know it looks like and non-committal and went away and we didn't hear anything then for another two months and then we went back to the council asked what's happening now after four months and the next day the man of our neighbour had every alternate tree cut down cut cut right down so we're left now with a long long row of land guy all cut down i think there's photographs to to demonstrate that so we are now left with these horrible just as high land guy as ever before and the branches are now going back but the timing was five and a half months from our application to a high hedge notice to the decision and in that time half the trees were removed and when he came back out of the blue the man came back and said well it's not a hedge anymore and that was a blow that was a serious blow that's helpful we got that i'd like some more of that evidence to get put on the record here that this morning but just mr stewart's point about the time in the process as well would anyone else like to put on the record anything about the time it took sorry i just like to add yeah i'd just like to add that in the guidelines it says that the process should be carried out in a timely manner now what is a timely manner i think that should be specified that should be whatever three months time you'll get the decision or whatever but it would have been really good to have known i promise mr stewart i'm taking in but actually what i was going to say was a follow-up actually to exactly what Pamela said in a timely manner issue because he mentioned time and the other thing about local authorities willfully in some ways helping to flaunt the law by this chopping down of every second tree i mean that's clearly that's utterly against the spirit of the law and for local authorities you know to accept that as a reason not to to ensure that the the entire row of trees is cut down to two metres i think is completely unacceptable and i think that just shows that they're not the councils are not following spirit of the law when they allow that to happen and just before just a little bit believe it or not there's a structure to all of this just before we go and expand on that further mr Gibson time timely process can we just exhaust that first of all does anyone else wish to put on the record about the length of time even though you got an outcome that you didn't like and no matter what legislation we have people will always sometimes outcomes they don't like but we think there's a systemic issue with this legislation but in the time the process takes did anyone else have significant delays in relation to that process just before we go and explore that next matter further if i could just say that although mines seem to be a non-hedge the local authority did copy out our submission to all the neighbours in the street and give them 28 days to respond about the hedge and then came back and said it wasn't a hedge so again that's a kind of delaying tactic i suppose and obviously a waste i would think of public funds if you if it's not a hedge why bother okay well mr sure i've tried there's no great there's no great stampede about delays in the process only one one one one one example there i think the delay in the process sometimes it's due to the volume of letters that need to go between the various different parties and that does take a bit of time there's an example of kerruth road that actually was on the the books for over a year before it was sorted out and the outcome in the end was very very good and very positive the trees had to be removed i think in the in the start of the start of the process pam you suffered because the councils didn't know how to behave or how to deal with things and the removing of 50 percent of your trees was absolutely disgraceful without taking the height down and there is a case where the dpa reporter used photographic evidence and used that to then say but this is how i want to deal with your trees now and i think if that had happened in these cases and in donald browns and in palms and the parries if they had used the photographic evidence and said your trees need to come down in height as well if the councils had teeth and were prepared to do it you would never get cases like john ballboards and very quickly your 50 odd cases people would stop behaving badly like that as would the councils so are there other examples of that i'm thinking about at the point where the complaint is is made it there's clearly a breach of the legislation should should the remedy be dictated by the local authority rather than another resident again trying to circumvent the legislation by pruning 50 percent of whatever it is of of the hedge or alleged non-hedge perhaps there has to be more power at the point where the offence is deemed to be evident that the local authority should have the power to dictate what the local remedy is rather than the what we heard in the panel in those experience yeah if you photographic evidence as to how the the the hedge was prior to putting your application in then the evidence is there that this is your neighbour is trying to circumvent the whole act by removing things but yeah that that that may be the evidence but it's whether the legislation gives the local authorities the power to dictate the remedy which i think is what we're trying to explore dr brang you wanted to come in on this area i was successful initially my council there was no problem with the council i say i don't often praise our council but this is one case they placed an order on the trees my neighbour appealed and between the order being placed and the visit of the reporter he did this he cut out half the trees now i'm sure there's some in legal circles there's some buzz going around that this is a way to circumvent the act because it's you know it's too common this the reporter arrived and really i wouldn't say one look at the trees but she looked at the trees oh these are not a hedge now so i lost the appeal the trees are still still as high still as dangerous in the high wind because over 20 of them blew down at one point but that's another issue and i think you know it's not just councils that are failing if the reporter comes out and sees somebody's tampered with the evidence if i did that in a in a fraud case i would be up in court if somebody does it and i've wasted money i've lost all this money having applied for this and i'm sure that other people will be in the same situation if a reporter says that's okay that's legal for you to fiddle with the evidence and then goes away and i'm left in limbo then i think you know it's not just councils that are are are failing the you know people who are taking out you know actions under this under this act i think it and it gets to really needs to be sorted out at that end as well i suppose if a homeowner built an extension without planning permission the council wouldn't say remove half of the extension would the no you're to remove the entire extension i suppose yes yes any more any more examples of this happening donal shearer on all these points i mean taking every other tree out doesn't take it away from the definition in the act so that i would say these are still high hedges and the council should still act on them because that's what they're doing now the more branches are now growing across uh and i'm good am i good to have to take another action in in five ten years if i'm still here uh to to address the problem again and spend more money on it okay points well made by by our witnesses elene smith do you want to add thanks caveina um yeah can i just say i think it obviously is timely given what we've heard and the evidence we've had at the committee has taken a look at the it's supposed legislatively what i suppose gets me i think there could be some confusion maybe at times with particular trees and tree protection orders but i was particularly shocked by mr mrs niven's situation because when my colleague scott barry first pursued this way back in 99 i think the big issue then that was using the example was leilandi hedges and quite clearly in this case given there's a letter saying it was planted as a hedge it is specifically leilandi i think by looking at it i can't for the life of me see why this particular case isn't deemed a hedge under the act because i think this was the very essence of what the act was about and how clear cut it could be so i just wanted to to put that on the record i mean obviously i've not seen the property i've not been there but just looking from the evidence in the pictures and from what mr mrs niven have been saying that that's what it strikes me it strikes me that this isn't a very good example of what it was meant to be about in the first place without any confusion around tree protection orders or how many trees are making up a hedge or what exactly a hedge is that that seemed to me to be the example of where it all started are there other examples i know there are because i've read it in the evidence but rather you said rather than the msp said are there other ways that you think the act is deficient that you'd like to put on the record here today i would just like to put on the record that it really doesn't have to be a formal hedge it doesn't have to be in a specific row my boundary with my neighbours there are two of them is 70 meters long there are 28 trees along that boundary they definitely weren't planted as a hedge but they definitely do all shade my garden they're all within five meters of the boundary there are all kinds of trees there's chestnuts copper beach two giant sequoia there was three but he's taken one of those out they are going to be enormous they've been planted for 30 years they grow two feet every year and they'll continue to grow two feet every year for another 150 years but the fact is that if trees planted in any pattern are preventing reasonable enjoyment of a neighbour's garden and house surely they shouldn't be allowed to continue like that okay thank you um and uh join ball but did you want to add yeah my uh my my personal situation is is much simpler than the most of these but i think it really cuts to the in my opinion it cuts to the heart of the problem which as i said before is that um local authorities are reluctant to um and even perhaps try to avoid action because they fear it'll blow a hole in their budget which they may not be able to recoup personally i think that's the root of the problem now my submission here starts sums it up the high hedges act isn't working because it has no teeth that basically i was successful in getting a high hedge notice issued against my neighbour that was issued some time ago it carried an eight month compliance period the eight month compliance period finished six weeks ago and the hedge has still not been cut so therefore it's six weeks illegal i've been in contact of course with clap manager council and they just seem to be vacillating pussy footing around writing to him asking for a schedule asking him when he's prepared to comply so i mean we've the tail is wagging the dog now is the what is the point of a compliance period if it only signals the beginning of persuasion it's so i i would i wouldn't know the politicians should never really ask questions that don't know the answer to but i want to ask i want to ask this one would the council of the power if it's all chose to to say you've not you've not deemed you've not complied with the order we're giving another four weeks but you now have a 500 pound fine levied against you for example well it's something like that and indeed it says i'm sorry it says in the act that um that they are empowered to uh the high hedges act provides for a council to send workmen to a non-compliers property to cut a hedge subsequently recovering costs from him clap manager council i think just i've too frightened to do that okay so there's the power to recoup the costs yes yes not not to issue but not to have a shock across the boughs of saying here's a modest fine and as i said before i think no this is a huge weakness of the act as it stands i don't think here any correct me if i'm wrong i don't think any local authority has done that they haven't actually sent in the contractors to cut the hedge and recover the costs and until they do that and show non-compliers that this is what will happen you cannot refuse the law against the law then i think people will as i said will just ignore it interestingly enough just as a finale clap manager council have just sent me my council tax bill and a nice little pamphlet here telling me all the wonderful things that the council tax does for me there's a i just noticed that there's a section right at the end it said what happens if i don't pay on time and then it goes through the help that they can give people who have financial problems the bottom line and it is the bottom line the very last sentence is if you fail to make payments this could see your earnings being arrested bank account being arrested and your debt increasing due to legal fees so they have that they're prepared to put the boot in if i was to say i'm not paying my council tax i choose not to uh they make it quite clear that i won't get away with that so why can't they use that kind of muscle on a high hedge fender they don't seem to want to and we're certainly intending asking them that question and we will certainly put that to them now because we're mentioning monies i know we want to talk about the fees that underpinned this process now might be a timely opportunity to go on to that part before we we miss out the appeals section i don't want you know at the moment all of us who have a non-hedge hedge have no right of appeal and that means that if your council choose not to allow your hedge to be a hedge you have no right of appeal to anybody and you know they dismiss your case and you have no right to appeal to the dpa so you can't take that outside your local authority you can't take it outside local personalities you've got nowhere to go even though your hedge is totally and they accept that it's totally under the terms of the act it's a high hedge but in their view it's not a hedge do i get i'm asking that question do local authority if there's no appeals process do local authority have the permissive power to have a reconsideration which is different from appeals process because not only is appeals process they look at the process rather than the judgment itself whereas a reconsideration would be a just an overview of the evidence that's there to see if they've erd at some point within that your application in the first place why are they then going to say that we're wrong i'm asking you a question that i should be asking the local authorities of course it's whether they have the power to review decisions made irrespective of whether there's an appeals process but you put on record the important point there isn't an appeals process is that a general concern that all of our witnesses have in relation to that kathryn liven um the letter from our local authority said that they only recompense to us was judicial review which we understand is enormously expensive totally unfeasible for us okay about fees if i can speak about fees i'm just checking because i tried to move on to fees and i missed out the appeals process would anyone else would anyone else like to comment on the appeals process before we move on to fees list man i would just like to say that the reason that you perhaps aren't getting a great deal of feedback generally on this is the fact that it's all silent as we've said before we don't have a record of how many applications have been dismissed by local authorities as non hedges i because it didn't cost me anything to do it submitted an appeal to the dpa against the refusal not to deem the hedge a high hedge we're getting into real semantics here because that was one way of actually publicising it and getting this no remit decision and if you look on the dpa website there are countless no remits and these are people who are in my position and similar positions where there's nothing else you can do i mean the local authority in my case had said to uh the golf club that the application has been returned to the applicant and the council has no intent of investigating this matter further then it goes on to say you are perhaps aware that there were discussions on the site visit i understand that by chance a member of your committee was present my recollection from that discussion was that there was some understanding on the part of the golf club of the applicant circumstance and the options still removed to explore some tree removal and they recommended a reopening of correspondence to explore works which would perhaps in part address her concerns well that email is dated the 18th of febri 2015 i've heard nothing yeah thank you and now we'll move on to fees yes i've taken a great interest in this right from the beginning and i've actually got a whole list of every council that charges a fee for every every council charges a fee the highest one is glasgo at 500 pounds and the lowest is ember Clyde at 182 which is quite a disparity i know from my scott hedge work that people phone me up and say i want to to apply for a high hedge i can't afford it there's no way i can afford 450 pounds there's no sliding scale there's no concessions apart from one which is and i'll name it south ayrshire and they do have a good sliding scale people on various benefits which are all means tested of course so i'm saying that the fees are too expensive the councils are using this to prohibit applications as well and i argue that there should be a sliding scale and in any case why should we have to pay for justice why are we having to pay out all this money which which we all of us have done with no guarantee of success and at the end of the day i'm left with these lilandi growing still growing closer together at the top and having to to think about do i want to try another high hedge notice application but my heart frankly goes out to the people who phone me through scott hedge weeping sometimes on the telephone and saying how can you help me well i can't pay all the fees obviously and even cab are reluctant to become involved although they try their their best but i think everyone here from um you know the witnesses would agree that the fees are too high and should have a sliding scale and we should be refunded the fees if successful thank you for that let's see what everyone else thinks we'd like to make a comment on the system of fees i will take in a second part i promise no one else want to see anything now would anyone else like to comment on that dr brown me again um yes i made made comment in my submission to the committee here that that if somebody transgresses by cutting out every second tree i should get all my money back i think this is ridiculous that i that i mean this is robbery in in two ways not only do i not get my my daylight but i also lose everything i i have paid out on this attempt to get the trees reduced in height and i think some kind of punishment for for the landowners um subverting the the intentions of the act should you know should be enforced okay thank you um donald shearer they'll take part the plan after that if i could just say that in my application to midlothian they were quite quick on it they took my 300 pounds looked at the trees and said it's not a hedge and when i complained they did give me 90 quid back so they took 210 pounds for that quick look but the thing that i think should happen is that if you are successful in the case then the hedge owner should pay it because that will be an incentive for him never to enter the argument in the first place he will just know that he's got a downside if he loses at the moment he doesn't thank you very much for that that was that was my point i mean even the local authorities and their summary of their submissions they felt that um the tree owner should pay the fees should the high hedge notice application be successful there was quite a strong view on both the submissions and the local authorities that that should be the case okay thank you that's uh jenny goreith did you want to come in yeah thank you computer um we've heard today about the kind of varying approaches to how the laws been interpreted nationally in terms of the time taken in terms of the appeals process the fact that you know there isn't a central log of you know how many appeals have been rejected sorry haven't been rejected or they just don't record it um the varying fees i wonder going back to your point Pamela you spoke about the local authorities and this idea of justice and i just suppose is there a cultural issue with our local authorities in terms of how the laws being implemented is there a reluctance for them to come out and engage in with people in terms of how they deal with high hedges do you think they don't see it as an issue do you think they consider that actually their job is you know to run our schools for example they're not that particularly interested in it do they just kind of bat these problems away in your experience and do you think we need to kind of i suppose go back to the letter of the law and look again at how it's being implemented in terms of how the local authorities view their responsibilities because it just feels to me that you know hearing from your experiences they're going to the nth degree to try and avoid enforcement and is that a cultural issue do you think at local authority level well you say engage with us but they don't actually i wish they would and you know they will not engage with us about in the process we just get letters we all get letters cultural i'm not quite sure because the the people who have taken on the duty from the local councils are the planning departments now the planners know nothing about on the whole high hedges and trees and what have you and maybe they've found out since a little bit but they're not experts you know they they really i'm sure try to do their best but they have a workload and they don't want to take on an extra workload and we thought about the financial constraints with the councils as well although we have sympathy with them to a certain degree we have to live our lives too and that's why we are paying our taxes and and to ask for 400 nod pounds for just to come and see you know the the trees that they haven't know about i'm sorry my view of local councils or my angus local council i'm afraid is rock bottom just with this issue because they gave me no confidence whatsoever part mcclarnan and they'll take in after that jointed part first okay the applications go into the planning department i think because they understand how tall a building is what the light loss would be in a planning scenario and they are supposed to understand that you know if you have two buildings close together you will lose the light and the tree officers quite often are attached to that department but tree officers generally are the type of people that want to plant lots and lots of trees to make things look beautiful so perhaps it's the wrong people who are looking to accept the high hedge applications you know we have a the the english version of the high hedge height and light loss document there is one for england and that is forever green trees and we refer to it in our guidelines and then the act that we should refer to that but we actually need a Scottish version of that because we take in deciduous trees which are slightly different to the lillandi trees and the evergreen trees but we are to our much more northerly latitude therefore we have shorter days than england has we are also slightly different tilted as far as the the you know the length of days the way that the sun interacts with with our our gardens therefore i think if we had our own version of that document that is the go to document it would be easier for the local authorities and for the the tree officers to say well you know you've lost a certain percentage of of the garden of your your you know sunlight and daylight therefore you know it's there and i think john you referred to that earlier you know you need a go to document that states that's going to last your life and that's a very good link is john ball but it's next to to make a comment i was just going to say that in in my opinion i do not think it's a cultural issue i think because my personal experience with clap manager council it's the only experience i've had they didn't have any problem issuing me a high hedge notice that they have a problem in enforcing it yeah and they they seem to have sort of panicked now that the guy has just dug his heels in and he hasn't done anything and um they don't really know what to do and i suspect it's not because they don't realise they could again going back to what i said before i think they're frightened of spending the money it's a lot of money to spend and i think he he probably will refuse to pay them and do you think sorry and they may not want to get into all that legal shenanigans and end up out of pocket perhaps that was sorry sorry computer that was my question do you think there's a retitence there because they're concerned that that they could be taken to court on the back of it and you know there's a fear there and that's perhaps part of it or do you think they're looking for clearer guidance from the government on enforcement well it's a client manager what i've been after them contacting them recently since because the hedge is now as i said before six weeks illegal and um the officer in charge of the case um has said that he is contacting the Scottish planning enforcement forum whoever they are to obtain information from other Scottish local authorities on their experience in dealing with non-compliance and they've also written to the guy the hedge owner as i said before asking him for his schedule and his proposed plans to comply with the law i don't think he's replied to them i just wanted to come in on the the english guidance on the acceptable light and and just say that i worked down in england in milton canes and when i used to go out for a pub lunch i used to sit in the shade of the hedge because it was always warm when i go out to a pub in scotland and it's sunny i invariably choose a seat that's in the sun so using the english guidance needs some adjustment okay i'll just leave that one hanging in there for a moment perhaps part mclarky help me out with that i just wanted to say one more thing about john's point of and and jenny you asked the question if we had a few cases like that where the authorities went in took the trees down to the height they should be charged the tree owner for the cost of it if you had half a dozen of these cases the tree owners would very quickly realise that actually we can't get away with this and they would come to heal very quickly and and the discussion that we're having round here would disappear we wouldn't be having it okay i'm just thinking about local authorities and and i think john ball what's been talking about is our disincentive because of the cost of seeking to enforce and manage this process and but if you look at local authorities and the monies they now make from various other forms of enforcement i'm just wondering that it's not a reason to do it of course is there actually a valid business model around making this self-financing and are they missing a trick there i was wondering any thoughts in relation to to that i was spoken about the fees before but are local authorities perhaps missing a trick in terms of how they deal with this any suggestions we'll get local authorities come in the 10th of may i should point out i'm sure you'll be following that with interest what suggestions would you like us to make to look keep it civil please what what suggestions would you like us to make to local authorities when they come in to answer questions from msp on the 10th of may mr bobots well i the only advice i could give them is that they should um someone over there said um pamela i think what was it pat said that some ultimately if if a precedent is set that the law is never enforced and as i said twice before i don't think it ever has been in that sense enforced the no local authority has cut trees and then taken the owner to court so i mean if a precedent is set throughout scotland that just ignore the higher hedges acts and and they won't do anything they won't say to court you won't have to pay the fine just ignore them and they'll go away then the law will be rubbish and useless no as i say toothless just the same as if parking fines were never enforced no one would ever pay them again that's perhaps one of the areas where local authorities make quite a significant amount of cash perhaps the parking attention be trained on how to spot a high hedge i that's not a serious suggestion i should point out now we are coming towards the end of this evidence session so that i'll throw open to to all of our witnesses it's an opportunity for doesn't have to fit in with the line of questioning so far but just some comments that you'd like to make because that'll inform our line of questioning when we do speak to local authorities in a few weeks time i'll take Roger living first and then i'll take you in pamela just going back to the evidence i gave to start with that i think i think if an applicant can prove that a hedge was planted as a hedge there should be no further test required and you know i think i'll take everybody's points about about the light and i think that's a that's a big one but also just an observation that local authorities seem to be able to interpret this act in so many different ways that the whole thing needs tightened up you know the round the process absolutely yeah and is it in fact is this is a job for local authorities when that's talking about the planning officers are they the people to do it that's a radical a radical departure but katharine i think you're going to add to that just thinking one of the things postcode lottery is generally considered to be a bad thing but here we are suffering from a postcode lottery it appears okay pamela I wouldn't like us to finish this meeting without acknowledging the mental health problems that it has caused the depression and anxiety within families and within communities I've spoken before about scot-hedge members reading writing to me and and phoning and emailing with huge problems and they're you know what they're afraid of their neighbours they sometimes would not allow their names to be on a list and they wouldn't join some of them wouldn't even join scot-hedge because they're afraid of their their names being on on our list but the anxiety and depression and the mental health problems i'd really would like to highlight because I came across it so often and that's helpful because committees can get very understand the process driven in relation in relation to this and look at the black and white of the legislation rather than the wider human impact so thank you for putting that on the record Mr Gibson yes yeah just to follow that I think there is a real that is a real important issue because I think a lot of people who are involved in this situation feel that their opinions and interests just simply don't matter and they're not being recognised by local authorities and these people are law-abiding citizens who keep their nose clean all their life and paid taxes and then when they need the local authority they may never have been in contact with in 10 20 30 years whenever they're let down and I think when someone seems to be acting against your interest but there's not an equivalence in terms of how it's been dealt with i.e. it's almost like you're guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around so in other words all the kind of weight of legislation appears to be or certainly interpretation of the legislation appears to be with the individual who's causing this problem and I think that's obviously can only cause upset and I know in my own constituency and I've been represented here that's a real major concern for them they just don't understand why this is actually happening to them you know people who've come from Glasgow retired saved up all their lives bought themselves a nice house we have you and then a couple of years later a big huge you know hedges erupted in front of them and they just think what you know why this happened to me what have I done wrong so I really do think it's something we really need to take serious and get a grip on that's why I'm delighted that the committee is bringing forward the the period in which we in which we have to review this legislation and not wait until until 2019 yeah and that was the decision we made as a committee we wanted to to do at an earlier opportunity I'm going to take in a second Donald Shearer I'm taking in next but just to make the point I am very close to ending this evidence session so if there's something you haven't said yet now's your time to do hands go up now's your time to do it Donald Shearer I'd just like to say that when the councils are evaluating the effect or the reasoning for the application the prime thing they should be looking at is how much shade is on the the applicant's garden whether the hedge was planted in a straight line whether it's trees that have been put in to form a screen but are in a a cops if you like or of whatever if you have a big piece of ground and you want it to be screened and you know that if you put it just in a hedge it'll be reduced but if you plant them in different places still to create a screen you'll be okay that's what you'll do okay thank you very much dr brown I'm just like the when you're considering this to look at the a route for those of us who feel that we've been badly dealt with in terms of picking out alternate trees or or you know be lost on appeal I shouldn't have to go back and pay the whole fees again merely to write something that really shouldn't have happened in the first place to correct a misjudgment I think and I'm sure that other people in similar situations shouldn't have to pay another 450 500 pounds to start the whole process again and the stress that that causes there should be some route for us to have an appeal or have a judgment overturned I know it's difficult but I really think for just to say we need that thank you very much I just wanted to say finally that I feel the guidelines are giving our local authorities too much individual scope for localisms I've given nine points as to where their sections in the guidelines that we allow the local authorities to make up their own minds how and how they deal with this okay that well that's not the last word Roger Niven if anyone wants to speak to the indicators now and we'll come to the evidence sessions Roger Niven thanks give me just just very briefly yes in addition to the to the frustration and the emotional cost of the situation that we have an ongoing annual financial costs because we're spending around 400 pounds a year taking moss off the roof which is as a direct result of the trees I'm sure we're not alone in that one thank you Liz Grant I would also say that although we're all sitting here and we're considering the ins and outs of it those of us that actually have to live with it we look out every window or isolated windows or whatever it may be and we see it every single day and trying to keep your mind off it or look the other way or install blinds or whatever you have to do it's very wearing and I think sometimes if people could approach it more in a spirit of how would I feel if I had to put up with that it might help okay thank you that's perhaps a good note to end evidence session on can I thank all witnesses for taking part in what I think is a very useful discussion in terms of the scrutiny that our committee is going to do as I mentioned earlier on we are taking further evidence on the 10th of May from local authorities so we'll put some of the questions and points you've raised directly to local authorities on the 10th of May and we'll keep you updated in the progress of our post legislative scrutiny so can I thank you all for coming along and can we suspend the meeting briefly to allow the room to be clear