High Hedges

If a neighbour’s evergreen hedge has grown into a wall that blocks your light, the council can order it to be cut back. The power comes from Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, and it is deliberately a last resort. You have to have tried to sort it out yourself first, the council will charge you a fee, and the rules are narrower than most people expect. This page explains what counts as a high hedge, how the complaint process works, what the council can and cannot order, and how appeals work.

 

 

 

What counts as a high hedge?

 

The definition in section 66 of the Act is precise, and most failed complaints fail here rather than on the merits. A high hedge means so much of a barrier to light or access as:

• is formed wholly or predominantly by a line of two or more evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs
• rises to a height of more than two metres above ground level

Every limb matters. Take them in turn.

A line of two or more. A single tree is outside the Act entirely, however large it is and however much light it takes. There is no high hedges remedy for one tree, which is a matter for common law nuisance, or a tree preservation order question if the tree is protected.

Evergreen or semi-evergreen. The Act is about species that keep their foliage. A hedge of purely deciduous species that drops its leaves each winter falls outside the definition, no matter how tall it is or how much of your light it blocks in summer. Leylandii is the archetype the legislation was written for.

More than two metres. Measured above ground level. A hedge of exactly two metres is not a high hedge.

A barrier to light or access. It has to act as a barrier, but note the Act’s own qualification: a line of evergreens is not to be regarded as forming a barrier if gaps in it significantly affect its overall effect as a barrier at heights above two metres. So a patchy, gappy line may not qualify, while a hedge with minor gaps still can.

 

Who can complain, and about what

 

A complaint can only be made by the owner or occupier of a domestic property, meaning a dwelling, or a garden or yard used and enjoyed wholly or mainly in connection with a dwelling. The garden does not have to be physically attached to the house, provided it is linked to it. Tenants can complain as well as owners, and an owner can complain even if the property is currently empty.

The ground is narrow: that the height of the hedge is adversely affecting your reasonable enjoyment of that property. Two consequences follow that catch people out:

• problems caused by roots are expressly excluded: subsidence, roots drawing moisture, blocked drains, damage to your planting from the root system: none of it can be considered under this Act
• anything that is not about height is outside the complaint: overhanging branches, leaf fall, birds, the hedge simply being unattractive

The hedge must also be on land owned or occupied by someone else. And it is no answer, incidentally, that the hedge was there before you moved in. That is not a relevant factor.

 

Try to sort it out first

 

The Act treats the council as a last resort, and authorities will require evidence that you have taken all reasonable steps to settle the matter yourself before they will take a complaint. In practice that means talking to your neighbour, then putting your concerns in writing and keeping a record, and considering mediation if direct discussion fails. You should also tell your neighbour that you intend to complain formally.

Councils will refuse to proceed where that groundwork has not been done, and many expect the attempts to be reasonably recent, because efforts made years ago may not be enough, on the basis that circumstances or attitudes may have changed.

 

How to make a high hedges complaint

 

Complaints go to the council for the area where the hedge is, not your own council, if they differ. Councils use their own forms, and they may charge a fee for the service. Fees are set locally, vary considerably between authorities and can be substantial: the charge is deliberate, intended both to keep the council a genuine last resort and to deter frivolous complaints. This is not a planning application and the planning fee scales do not apply, so ask the council for its current charge before you commit. A council may refund the fee in circumstances it determines, for example where it cannot proceed with the complaint at all.

The council’s role is not to mediate or negotiate between you and your neighbour. It is to adjudicate on a single question: is the height of the hedge adversely affecting your reasonable enjoyment of your property? It will gather information from both sides and normally carry out a site visit. Your neighbour will see a copy of your complaint.

There is no statutory deadline for the council to decide. Assessment of light loss is done using the government’s technical guidance on hedge height and light loss, which produces a calculated hedge height, though that figure is a starting point rather than the answer, since other factors are weighed too.

 

The remedial notice

 

If the council decides the hedge is adversely affecting your reasonable enjoyment, and that action should be taken, it must issue a remedial notice. This sets out what must be done to the hedge and by when, and it can require ongoing maintenance at a lower height rather than a one-off cut.

Two hard limits apply. A remedial notice cannot require:

• the height of the hedge to be reduced to less than two metres above ground level
• the removal of the hedge

So the best realistic outcome is a hedge maintained at some height above two metres, not a cleared boundary. The hedge owner is free to go further voluntarily, but cannot be made to.

The notice takes effect on an operative date at least 28 days after it is issued, and specifies a reasonable compliance period running from that date. It binds the land rather than the individual, so it passes to subsequent owners of the property, a point worth knowing if you are buying a house with a large hedge and a history.

The council can later withdraw a remedial notice, or waive or relax its requirements, and withdrawing one does not stop it issuing another for the same hedge.

 

Appeals

 

Appeals go to the Secretary of State, and in practice are handled by the Planning Inspectorate. They must be made within 28 days, a far shorter window than a planning appeal allows.

Both sides have rights of appeal, which is unusual and worth understanding:

• where the council issues a remedial notice, withdraws one, or waives or relaxes what it requires, both the complainant and the owner or occupier of the land can appeal
• where the council decides the complaint itself against the complainant, only the complainant can appeal, so a refusal to act is appealable too

Our guide to a high hedges appeal covers the rest: the four grounds you are allowed to argue, the power to allow a late appeal, what happens to the notice while the appeal is running, what the appeal authority can decide, and the trap of the two different 28 day periods.

 

Offences and enforcement

 

Failing to comply with a remedial notice within the compliance period is a criminal offence, prosecuted in the magistrates’ court and punishable by a fine of up to level 3 on the standard scale, currently £1,000. Where a person keeps failing to take steps the court has ordered, they commit a further offence, with a daily fine for each day the failure continues.

The council also has practical powers. It can enter the land to carry out the works required by the notice and recover its expenses from the hedge owner. Before carrying out that work it must give every occupier of the land at least 7 days’ notice, and obstructing the work is itself an offence. The shorter 24 hours’ notice applies only to the earlier visits the council makes to gather information about the hedge.

 

Not the same as countryside hedgerows

 

Two completely separate regimes share a word, and confusing them is common:

• high hedges: Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003; garden evergreen hedges; a neighbour complaint about loss of light; the council orders a cut-back
• countryside hedgerows: the Hedgerows Regulations 1997; largely rural, often ancient field boundaries; you must give the council a hedgerow removal notice before removing one, and it can be refused

The two barely overlap: garden hedges are expressly outside the 1997 Regulations, and countryside hedgerows are rarely evergreen lines next to a dwelling. If your question is about what you can do to a hedge on your own property rather than a neighbour’s, see our guide to hedges around the dwelling.

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

 

 

Relevant legislation

 

High hedges sit outside the planning Acts entirely, in anti-social behaviour legislation. When checking any provision, use the “Changes to Legislation” panel on legislation.gov.uk, as later amendments are not always shown in the main text.

• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, Part 8: the whole high hedges regime, sections 65 to 84
• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, section 66: the definition of a high hedge, including the two-metre threshold and the gaps qualification
• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, section 69: remedial notices, and the bar on requiring removal or a reduction below two metres
• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, section 71: appeals, including the complainant’s right to appeal a refusal to act

Other Planning Application Sections

 

 

 

High Hedges Page Updated: 21st August 2026