Boundary hedging

[penny in the vendee]

 In 2002, I planted a laurel hedge as a boundary on a small triangular piece of land in front of our house. There is a road that runs up each side.  Some weeks ago, my neighbour asked us to cut it lower, as he said it obstructed his view of the road when driving, this is not the case as he only has a small Renault, so, unless it was cut right down, it would make no difference! There is no problem with visability of the road, which is a minor country one.We trimmed the whole thing , it is about four feet at the moment, but he has just cut some of it right back to the main stem on the point of this triangle, and trimmed some other parts back hard as well, is that allowed? Should I go to the Marie? We

are not living in the house at the moment as we have another about 2

kms away, so cannot watch what is happening all the time! Any advice gratefully received.

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

You need to check how close to your boundary the hedge is. I don't know about the rules for boundaries with a public highway, but there are definite limits on how close you can plant a hedge to a neighbor's land and they depend on how high the hedge is.

The Mairie should have the rules available, but be prepared to discover you're in the wrong.

[cooperlola]

If you put "Boundary" into the search box, you'll find that this has been covered a lot.  It does seem to depend upon local ordanances in some cases, but as far as I could see the consensus seemed to be that a hedge must be at least 0.5 metres within your boundary so, as Albert says, you may not get the answer you want to hear!

[penny in the vendee]

Thanks for the prompt reply, I planted the hedge about one and a half metres from the road edge, as I had been told that there must be enough room for a car to take evasive action without running into it!!

[cooperlola]

On a practical note - I'd just try this out for myself in your position.  Approach the road, as your neighbour is doing, and if you have to put the nose of your car out into the road you're turning into in order to see - then your hedge is probably too far out.  If you can see round the corner without having to put yourself in danger, then it's probably fine!  The rules on hedging and its relationship to the highways do tend, after all, to be there for safety reasons above all.