Councillors up in arms over overgrown hedges

Overgrown hedges are causing damage to buses and dangerously blocking roads, said councillors at the latest meeting of Manorhamilton municipal district. 

The subject arose when Cathaoirleach Cllr Justin Warnock asked that a special allocation of money be set aside in the roads budget for a pilot scheme for the Manorhamilton MD, for the "emergency cutting of hedges on roads which hinder the delivery of public services due to issues of ownership of lands, absentee landlords or private forestry companies." 
He was advised that the council will continue to issue hedge cutting notices to landowners when required, "as it is the landowner’s responsibility to maintain roadside hedgerows on their property. Allocation of public funds to hedge cut on private property in isolated locations will discourage other landowners who have been maintaining their hedgerows. Landowners can avail of the hedge cutting grant to assist in covering some of the costs involved."

Cllr Warnock said he will bring the issue before the relevant SPC in order to try and secure funding.
Speaking to the Leitrim Observer, he said, "If nine landowners on a road cut their hedges and one person doesn't, it leaves it that you can't go up and down with buses or ambulances, etc. Then the council should go out and cut the hedges and bill the landowners for it."
He continued that it's the "same couple of people in the county that will do nothing unless there's pressure put on them and sometimes we just don't have time to waste."

He concluded, "The council said they are writing to the landowners but that really isn't good enough because sometimes they can't locate them. The council needs to put in a fund and it's not a substantial amount of money as it may be just one individual in an area causing the whole problem."

Cllr Felim Gurn said, "There are always 'keyboard warriors' as I call them giving us grief through social media and it's not about the state of the roads anymore, it's not about the tarmac on the road or the potholes; it's about the trees, the branches."

He said that due to overgrown hedges a local bus service was pulled adding that the route has now been reinstated. 
"The frustration for us as councillors trying to get the council to do something on the road; they're saying they won't cut the hedges and it's up to the landowner to cut the hedges. 
"You had a bus service disconnected because of the state of the road with branches and leaves. We're trying to come up with a fast solution to this and we are being told that the roads budget is just for roads themselves and can't be diverted to cutting hedges."

He said the council has to look at portfolios and land registrations in order to locate the landowner involved. 
"This is an ongoing problem and a national problem. We are frustrated as councillors and are being blamed for this. One landowner might cut their hedges while two might not."

He said the bus driver who pulled the route along the road overgrown by hedges lost a mirror that cost €3,000. 
"A solution to this issue has to come either through farm payments to do this work or we increase the payment we have from €75 per km to €125. We are frustrated and the general public is and that vital services are being pulled at the last minute. It's like beating our head off a stick."

He said another solution that was floated, "cut the hedges and bill the landower." 
"You have Eir out, you have the ESB out where they have to cut trees because of overgrown branches and power lines and Eir lines so some solution has to be found to this," he said.

School bus forced to pull route 

Cllr Padraig Fallon said he believed the Leitrim County Council Leitrim cutting grant scheme, which provides a grant of €75 per km for roadside hedge/overhanging trees, is a favourable scheme. 
Cllr Fallon said that, as a farmer, he avails of the scheme himself and encourages others to do so. "It's a good scheme and one that was hard fought," he told the Leitrim Observer adding that it "encourages farmers to cut their hedges."
He said that a school bus had to stop travelling along the L2125 due to hedge overgrowth. "We talked about an emergency budget needing to be in place for instances such as these. I had spoken to both engineers as well as the senior engineer because there were about four or five points on the route, where if a hedge cutter had to go out, it might have facilitated the school bus. I don't think a situation like that can be allowed to develop again."
He added that he felt it was dangerous with "kids being brought to different pick-up points on a busy main road - there is a health and safety issue there."
He said he believed in such instances, local authority staff should be dispatched to cut the hedges and the landowner should be billed for the works.