Leylandii disputes to grow unintended consequences

Householders upset by the fees to be charged by local authorities for enforcing the regulations relating to the height of these fast growing trees may not have considered an even greater hidden cost involved in exercising their new rights.

What will be recorded as a neighbour dispute will have to be revealed when either of the householders wishes to sell his property. Legal action or the threat of it may be more expensive than both neighbours ever dreamed. Bad neighbours reduce the value of properties rather more than a scruffy kitchen. Indeed they may make them unsaleable.

The moral must be, if not “Love thy neighbour as thyself” at least “Do unto him only that which you would have done to you”.