Sycamore Nuisance – Our Story
Where our garden ends, there is a Retaining Boundary Wall, with a 10 foot drop. It is unclear who is responsible for the upkeep of the retaining wall.
On the neighbour’s side, there is a space of around 12 to 15 feet from the retaining wall and to their driveway. On this space, there is a line of very tall Acer pseudoplatanus Sycamore Trees. Some sycamore trees are less than a foot away from the retaining wall. If the wall were to fail, we would lose garden land on our property..
The Sycamore Trees have been Coppice and Pollard, which in itself can cause problems.
Our neighbours are what we would deem to be very unpleasant and difficult to impossible to talk to. We have attempted to communicate with them face to face, to no avail. We have also sent recorded delivery letters, since we have lived on our property. In the letters, we have explained our fears on damage being caused to the wall as a result of the sycamore tree roots (& ivy), as well as not being able to cut branches so far up the tree and the lake of enjoyment to our garden. All of this has been to no avail. We have also offered to pay to manage the Sycamore Trees, to no avail. Replies received are simply, “we will get back to you in due course” and we know that when our neighbours say this, they never do.
We have informed our neighbours that we will cut back branches to the boundary and do little more than this at present. Cutting the branches high up (The sycamore trees are now over four stories high) is impossible and unsafe to do, if we were to put a ladder system up.
(Sep23 Update) Our aim now is to continue to review legal ways forward to get our neighbour to take responsibility of the retaining wall and the damage the sycamore trees would be causing to it, as well as reviewing how we can request that they manage branches that we can not get to.
We met with the Council in 2023 and were pleased to have a site visit by them. The person who visited looked at our situation and was as sympathetic as he could be. However, the end result was that it was his opinion that as they were sycamore trees (although a line / hedge), their was no action they could take on the matter.
If we speak with a solicitor at a later date, one area we may explore is the right to sun light and in regards to having solar panels installed in our garden, rather than on the roof. As a result of the sycamore (hedge) height, we are being declined access to free energy when the sun is the other side of the tall sycamore trees.