hedge

Council bosses have ordered an 89-year-old pensioner to trim his 110-yard long historic hedge back to stumps over health and safety fears – because it overhangs a footpath.

Roy Dowson has been ordered to trim the 140-year-old yew bush, which is 8ft high, after pedestrians complained there isn’t room to walk along the pavement.

Officials from Lincolnshire County Council’s highways department visited his home in the village of Burton, Lincolnshire, on Tuesday and ordered Mr Dowson to chop back the hedgerow by February 24.

But the pensioner, who has his hedge trimmed every year, says cutting it back to level with the wall would completely ruin it.

Mr Dowson said “I’ve been at the property for 40 years and the hedge was planted in 1880 as part of the Burton estate. I have the hedge trimmed every year and I think they’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”