TREES AND HEDGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22822, 5 March 1936, Page 17

TREES AND HEDGES

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —In Friday’s issue of your paper I read with interest the report of a meeting hold by the lloslyn Ratepayers’ Association, especially their decision to ask the council to appoint an officer to deal with property owners whose hedges were not cut back. I suppose there is a bylaw imposing certain conditions. It is certain that the hedges are a menace, m many cases, when they are neglected. Because of our pride in Dunedin and our confidence in our council, as well as for safety to neighbours, this is a matter which demands attention. Another matter requiring immediate inspection and attention is the large trees with branches extending over the next person’s house; when deciduous, these fill up the spouting and the next person’s drains as well as making the keeping of paths and garden plots tidy an impossible task. Is there a by-law calling attention to that kind of offence?, I wonder, and is there an officer who visits and reports upon such neglect? My own large room, on the shadv side of this large house, in a large property for which the friends with whom I stay pay high taxes, is rendered dark by our neighbours’ overhanging deciduous trees, probably an oversight, but it takes some patience to put up with it. We insist upon up-to-date hygient and endeavour to improve the health of the people by enforcing rules of hygiene. We recommend the sun’s rays and tell about their benefit. At the same time, simultaneously, we stand by, inactive, watching the foliage of Jrees shutting out the sun’s rays, makimr a house dark and unwholesome. It would seem advisable to introduce a by-law, if one does not at present appear on the list of by-laws, and then to enforce that restriction as rigidly as the other hvgienic rules arc enforced, for the sake of the health of the people ot Dunedin, Feeling confident that this matter will receive the attention it deserves. —I am, etc.. Observer.