NO OBSTRUCTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 51, Issue 129, 13 March 1931, Page 4

NO OBSTRUCTION.

OVERGROWN HEDGES. MAGISTRATE GIVES DECISION. Decision against the Ashburton Borough Council’s order to cut back live hedges that have overgrown the footpath, was given in the Magistrate’s Court this morning by Mr H. P. La wry, S.M. Last Court day the Ashburton Hospital Board, Dr. N. E. H. Fulton, Dr. W. R. Ryburn, Robert Kennedy and William Bowden appealed against the Council’s order to cut back their hedges to the building line, on the ground that the hedges were not an obstruction to traffic on the street, as declared by the Council. When the case came before the Court, the Magistrate made a visit of inspection to the hedges and when the Court resumed it was agreed to adjourn the case to see if the parties could arrive at a compromise. This morning, Mr L. A. Charles (for the Council) stated that no settlement had been arrived at.

The Magistrate said that in all the cases it was admitted that there was an encroachment on the footpath, but the advantage of clearance by cutting would be far outweighed by the general appearance that would result. He had decided not that there was encroachment, that had been admitted, but that the encroachment was not an obstruction to traffic. Mr Charles said that the Council had not picked out the five complainants. Numerous complaints regarding overgrown hedges had boon received by the Council, and 130 cases of overhanging hedges had boon located. To 65 of those notices to cut back the hedges had been issued. In 60 of those cases, the people concerned did not see fit to take' action against the Council. The five which formed the subject of the case were not the worst instances of overgrown hedges. The Magistrate said that in most cases the hedges seemed to have been nicely kept. In Bowden’s case the bodge from the corner to the gate, a distance of 10 or 12 feet, should be cut back, or removed without adding to the disfigurement that had already been, done to that pronerty by the cutting back of an adjoining boundary hedge. As for the ethers, thero was no need to cut back, and the appeal would be allowed. Costs were not asked for.