A ROW has broken out over an 18-foot-high hedge.
Peter Penny and his neighbours have grown tired of clearing up foliage from their gardens in Whitebeam Drive, Reigate – shed from a towering hedge growing in the grounds of Reigate School.
Fed up, they want a more permanent solution to the privet and Mr Penny says responsibility for maintaining it should fall with the school as it is on their side of the fence.
"The leaves are so bad they all come indoors when it's fairly windy," said the 58-year-old Gatwick Airport worker. "If nothing's done about it, it will be touching our houses – which at one point it was. The state of it at the minute, in another year it would be well over our drives. It's just the amount of mess it causes. It just sheds its leaves all the time and at the end of the day the way we look at it, it's their hedge, it's rooting from their side – why can't they maintain it?"
But, according to head teacher Sue Wardlow, legal implications are preventing the school from cutting the hedge down on both sides.
"We had the hedge cut down from our side but what we're not allowed to do is go into the neighbour's property and cut their side of the hedge down," she said. "If the tree goes into someone else's garden we can't cut it. We've said we'd have no problem if we had a legal right to do it."
Mrs Wardlow said the school had taken advice from Surrey County Council.
"What Surrey County Council has said is we'd be on difficult legal ground if we went in and cut their hedge down," she added. "If we caused any damage we've not got a leg to stand on. It's a bit complicated."
Mr Penny said he had been informed about the legal issues but claimed the school had previously cut the hedge down on his side and questioned why it couldn't be done again.
"They did it about a year and a half ago," he added. "If they couldn't cut it the last couple of times they've done it then what's the problem?"
Reigate School is now consulting with Surrey County Council's legal team.
