Donegal County Council urged to intervene as ‘hedges making it difficult to travel’

Donegal County Council has been asked to intervene on dangerously overgrown roadside hedges and trees across the Letterkenny and Milford districts.

Councillor Declan Meehan has called for more urgency in addressing the issue of non-compliance this winter.

Despite being two months into hedge-cutting season and in the aftermath of Storm Amy, Cllr Meehan said there are too many landowners who have not addressed the risks posed by their hedges and verges.

"There are examples of landowners who have been contacted twice and still no action has been taken," Cllr Meehan told a recent meeting of the Letterkenny-Milford Municipal District.

"It is important to put on the record that we appreciate when diligent landowners are maintaining their hedgerows and verges in a timely manner," he said.

"It is equally important that landowners are aware they are liable for accidents for failure to maintain their hedgerows."

Cllr Meehan raised a motion asking Donegal County Council to urgently cut back unsafe roadside vegetation where landowners have not acted after notice and to set a firm deadline, such as 14 days, after which the Council will carry out the work and recover the costs.

Cllr Meehan warned that the issue will continue to come up unless the local authority changes its approach.

He has called for more intervention by the council when landowners do not respond to formal notices.

Senior Roads Engineer David McIlwaine stated that the local authority does have a policy of following up with landowners for payment after intervention, but that the process of recovering the funds is "a torturous one".

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Seconding Cllr Meehan's motion, Councillor Michael McBride said the issue is particularly bad this year following a summer of strong growth.

"School bus operators in rural areas are all complaining about hedges making it difficult to travel," Cllr McBride added.

The responsibility of the landowner is outlined in Step 2 of the document published by the Department of Agriculture Food and Marine and the Tree Council of Ireland in October 2021 " A Guide for Landowners to Managing Roadside Trees".

It states that "The Roads Act 1993 requires owners or occupiers of land to take all reasonable steps to ensure that trees or other vegetation on their land are not a hazard to persons using a public road. Local authorities may issue notices to landowners requesting them to maintain or cut back trees or hedges. 

If a tree fails (breaks or collapses) and causes injury or damage, the landowner will be held liable if negligent. Negligence will usually depend upon whether the tree was in an obviously dangerous condition, and whether the landowner had a programme of checking and managing roadside trees. That is, if the accident was reasonably foreseeable and could have been prevented.

"An ‘Act of God’ is not a viable defence if the tree involved was obviously defective and the landowner had not checked their trees."