Gaining access to a neighbours field for hedge management?

YorksLass

Member
Plan B- find a contractor with an 8 metre boom........ the renter wont care if its shorter provided it doesnt get tyre marks on her grass and LO is never seen :D
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Ours arent that deep, couple of feet?

Its more that the height needs taming to allow it to thicken, before it gets too tall and falls over in a stiff wind and good bye privacy/ wind break/ habitat etc

If the ditch isn't deep then it's unlikely to be very wide, and the issue is they don't want wheelings on their side then reach over and trim it. But do ask permission first. Because it's their hedge by the sounds of it.
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
Let's have a look at a hypothetical situation. If A takes B to court over the trimming of a hedge, what damages is A likely to be awarded? The principle of damages is to put the plaintiff in the same position he was in before he suffered the injury, in so far as money can do it. If he wins, he'll get costs as well of course. But if the trimming actually leaves him better off, what is the outcome likely to be?
 

honeyend

Member
I feel your pain. We have a shared boundary hedge which has become tall a straggly , we cut our side to six feet, and the rest is failed at an angle, so their side is still tall. The neighbour flew around, you've cut our hedge, well no we haven't . So their side has suckered about 10 feet in to their field. Its being done again tomorrow, the ace up my sleeve is its also the boundary to our garden, so if they get nasty I will be on to the council to make them cut if to six feet. What is it about hedges that makes people so irate, and bloody minded.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
You think you guys have issues. I have a garden hedge which is mine . First the neighbour says can He put a fence his sidee to increase privacy and keep his dogs in. No sweat says its your land do as you like. Next he is moaning at me for topping off the hedge at about 8 feet because they have lost privacy. Its now 6 feet 😂
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
The hedge does go with the ditch, only they both belong to your neighbour, under the hedge and ditch rule of boundaries, unless you have something on your deeds that says otherwise. Technically you shouldn't have been maintaining the ditch on your side of the hedge without permission, though its unlikely that anyone is going to make a fuss about it. However if you go flailing their hedge without permission they will undoubtedly get narked.......
That hedge ditch rule is a fecking stupid one, maybe when stuff was done with spades it might have made a glimmer of sense but from that time forward it’s bloody stupid being responsible for a ditch the opposite side of a hedge for all parties
 

David.

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
J11 M40
The custom around here is to cut your side, and leave topping to the hedge owner.
The ditch rule hangs on the assumption that the man digging the ditch dug right up to his boundary, then threw the spoil back onto his own side and finally planted the hedge on the spoil mound.
However in 1700 and whatever, ditches would have been cleaned by hand with a shovel and the cleanings thrown in the hedge bottom.
But nobody anticipated needing future access to the neighbours field with a 16 ton metal dinosaur looking thingy, to do the job mechanically.
 
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Yale

Member
Livestock Farmer
How about you approach the owner once you have investigated and proved you don’t own the hedge or ditch.

Suggest you would like to buy the hedge and ditch in exchange for not opposing any development.

You know the development would go through easier without neighbouring opposition.

Mention things like you’ve seen great crested newts in there however if you owned it then it would not be an issue for him then.
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
The custom around here is to cut your side, and leave topping to the hedge owner.
The ditch rule hangs on the assumption that the man digging the ditch dug right up to his boundary, then threw the spoil back onto his own side and finally planted the hedge on the spoil mound.
However in 1700 and whatever, ditches would have been cleaned by hand with a shovel and the cleanings thrown in the hedge bottom.
But nobody anticipated needing future access to the neighbours field with a 16 ton metal dinosaur looking thingy, to do the job mechanically.
Exactly in 1750 it was maybe a law that made sense, but 300ish years later it should have been scrapped as b@llocks
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Exactly in 1750 it was maybe a law that made sense, but 300ish years later it should have been scrapped as b@llocks

Its not a statute, ie a law that was passed by Parliament, so it can't be repealed, its part of Common Law, ie the body of law based on precedents that has grown up over centuries of civil court decisions. At some point some judge decided the Hedge and Ditch Rule was the correct way to decide boundary disputes, and once that precedent was set all other judges after followed the same rule.

So there is really only one way to change it, you'd have to convince Parliament to legislate to override the Common Law precedent on boundaries and insert their own definition instead. However that might be worse for landowners, because then your boundaries would be defined by Parliament, and as we all know no one Parliament can bind another, so boundary law would no longer be set in stone, it could always be changed by a new Parliament with different ideas. At least with Common Law precedents you have a fairly secure knowledge of where the boundary is, and will be in perpetuity. Politicians are here today gone tomorrow so things could change constantly.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Its not a statute, ie a law that was passed by Parliament, so it can't be repealed, its part of Common Law, ie the body of law based on precedents that has grown up over centuries of civil court decisions. At some point some judge decided the Hedge and Ditch Rule was the correct way to decide boundary disputes, and once that precedent was set all other judges after followed the same rule.

So there is really only one way to change it, you'd have to convince Parliament to legislate to override the Common Law precedent on boundaries and insert their own definition instead. However that might be worse for landowners, because then your boundaries would be defined by Parliament, and as we all know no one Parliament can bind another, so boundary law would no longer be set in stone, it could always be changed by a new Parliament with different ideas. At least with Common Law precedents you have a fairly secure knowledge of where the boundary is, and will be in perpetuity. Politicians are here today gone tomorrow so things could change constantly.
so, with the boundary law as it is, would you clean out a ditch "your side" of a hedge, when technically you only owned up to the edge of the ditch?
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Even if they had a field fence on your neighbours side of the hedge in his/her field, it is still their hedge. You never cross a ditch to get to a hedge.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
When my father bought. Farm in the 1950’s he forced the neighbour to get the ditches dug as there was the threat then of a poor farming eviction.
He did though have to pay for the prt that was theother side. It was all done by the war ag with a dragline
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
so, with the boundary law as it is, would you clean out a ditch "your side" of a hedge, when technically you only owned up to the edge of the ditch?
I generally do clean out ditches on 'my' side, because its to my benefit and no-one ever seems to complain about ditches being cleared out, it appears to be considered a universal 'good thing'. As @Dry Rot says, what could you be sued for, improving a ditch? And lets face it a lot of the people who are a problem in these circumstance don't realise its their ditch anyway. Whereas lots of people have different ideas as to what a hedge should look like so cutting someone else's hedge is likely to stir up a hornets nest. I think in most people's eyes a hedge is more of 'thing' that they own (and thus can be damaged) than a ditch is.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I generally do clean out ditches on 'my' side, because its to my benefit and no-one ever seems to complain about ditches being cleared out, it appears to be considered a universal 'good thing'. As @Dry Rot says, what could you be sued for, improving a ditch? And lets face it a lot of the people who are a problem in these circumstance don't realise its their ditch anyway. Whereas lots of people have different ideas as to what a hedge should look like so cutting someone else's hedge is likely to stir up a hornets nest. I think in most people's eyes a hedge is more of 'thing' that they own (and thus can be damaged) than a ditch is.
you are absolutely right and many people have absolutely no idea of either the law or what constitutes a good hedge
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
But when is it a ditch and not a water course/stream/burn etc.? I have a "ditch" on one boundary and I take it in turns with my neighour to clean it. We each do it from our own side with the spoil put on who ever's turn it is this time! It is marked as a burn on the maps, yet it is smaller than the main "ditch". If it ever went to court, we would have real fun because the course from the source, according to local legend, has been altered though I am probably the only one alive who knows the truth of the matter. (And that came to me by word of mouth from memory!).
 

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