The Tree, The Council and The Street Lamp

Regular readers may remember a blog post from late 2011 regarding a street lamp outside my house and a tree that has grown to such an extent it was blocking light and maintenance access. The council at the time, citing the Highways Act 1980, gave me 14 days to complete the work or they would do it themselves and seek to recover the costs.

One small problem the tree and the lamp post is on land which is not mine, so I’m not liable. This was pointed out to them at the time which had a confirmation reply that my response was noted and recorded.

2 ½ years later the tree remains untouched. Funnily enough when they thought it grew on my land it was urgent yet when it turns out to be their problem it was less urgent.

And so the lack of pruning of the tree has resulted in another letter to me from my local council, virtually identical in wording to the original, that as a result of a maintenance inspection (nice to know they happen on such a regular occasion) I need to carry out the work in 14 days “or else”. My original email been lost then?

Just to "help me on my way" I have been given a sheet of illustrations that demonstrate the "council requirements for trimming trees around S/L columns - scanned below (click to enlarge):

Apparently they require that:

Clearance to be sufficient to be effective for at least 12 months but preferably as a long term solution

I'm not sure how they would know it was effective for at least 12 months given inspections seemingly happen only every 2 ½ years. Clearly then what apparently applies to me does not apply to the Council (the tree is on Highway Agency property). They admit themselves the current situation is contrary to the Highways Act so that then applies to them as well.

One is now having mischievous thoughts...