There are two versions of this and they need different answers. A hedge that has spread into your own garden is a maintenance question. A hedge that has spread over a boundary is partly a legal one — and worth getting right, because boundary hedges are a common source of neighbour disputes that were entirely avoidable.
How a hedge crosses a boundary
Slowly and invisibly. A hedge cut only on top puts on a few inches of width a year. Nobody notices, because it never changes much between one summer and the next — until fifteen years on it is a foot or more over the line and someone mentions it.
If it is your hedge and it has gone over
Deal with it before someone asks you to. Cutting your own hedge back to the boundary is straightforward on most species, and doing it voluntarily is considerably better than doing it after a difficult conversation.
On beech, hornbeam, yew, hawthorn, hazel, laurel, privet or holly you can go right back to the framework — bare for a season, then thicker than before. On Leylandii and most other conifers you are limited to the depth of green on that face, and if the hedge has gone a long way over, there may not be enough.
That is worth knowing early, because it is the case where a boundary problem becomes genuinely difficult: a conifer hedge over the line, with no green left to cut back to, has only two honest answers — leave it, or take it out.
If it is a neighbour's hedge coming over
You have a common law right to cut back growth that crosses onto your land. It is narrower than most people assume.
| You may | You may not |
|---|---|
| Cut growth back to the boundary line | Cut beyond the line into their side |
| Cut roots that cross onto your land | Enter their garden without permission |
| Do it without asking permission | Kill or destabilise the hedge |
| Do it at any time of year | Keep cuttings without offering them back |
The cuttings technically belong to the hedge's owner and should be offered back. In practice a conversation settles it, but tipping a trailer of clippings over the fence is not the way to start one.
The conifer warning
This is the part worth reading twice. Cutting a neighbour's conifer hedge flush to the boundary line very often means cutting into brown wood — because the hedge has been growing over your side for years and the green is all on the outside of where the line is.
You are entitled to do it. The result is a permanently bare face, and it is on your side. It looks worse than the encroachment did and it cannot be reversed.
When it is a height problem rather than a width one
If the real issue is that a neighbour's hedge blocks your light rather than crossing your boundary, cutting is not the remedy. The route is a high hedge complaint to Wyre Forest District Council under Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003.
It applies only to a line of two or more evergreens over two metres acting as a barrier to light or access — so conifers, laurel and privet are in scope; beech and hornbeam, being deciduous, are not, and neither is a single tree however large.
You have to have genuinely tried to resolve it directly first, and Wyre Forest District Council charges a fee to take the complaint on. And if a remedial notice is issued, the council cannot require the hedge below two metres and cannot order it removed.
Getting the line back and keeping it
- Cut back to the boundary, or to the old cutting line, whichever you can find.
- Put a batter on the face — slightly wider at the base — so light reaches the bottom and the base stays green.
- Leave a working gap of at least 300mm to any fence, or that face can never be cut again.
- Establish a line and cut back to that same line every year afterwards.
- Do the faces every time, not just the top. Topping alone is what caused this.
And check for trees in the line
A hedge cannot carry a Tree Preservation Order, but a tree grown up within one can. In Stourport's conservation area a tree in a hedge needs six weeks' written notice to Wyre Forest District Council above 75mm stem diameter, and a TPO tree needs written consent at any size — including for growth on your own side of the boundary.
Got a hedge that's crossed the line?
Tell us what it is and how far it has gone. We'll tell you what can be brought back.
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