Overshadowing from trees and the high hedges complaint

If your neighbour's leylandii have taken the light from your back rooms, the planning system will not help you. Overshadowing tests apply to development, and a hedge is not development. The route is Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, a complaint made to the council about a high hedge, and it works quite differently from a planning application.

It also has hard limits. A single tree, however large, is outside the scheme entirely, and so is a deciduous hedge that drops its leaves in winter.

Why vegetation is treated differently from buildings

Planning control bites on operations and material changes of use. Growing a hedge is neither, so no permission was ever needed and none can be refused. The BRE daylight and sunlight tests that a developer must answer, including the two hour sun test for amenity areas on 21 March, have no application to a hedge that grew there over 20 years.

English law also gives no general right to light across a neighbour's land. The easement of light acquired by long use under the Prescription Act 1832 attaches to a defined aperture in a building and is enforced in the civil courts against obstruction by a structure. Courts have declined to extend it to trees.

That does not leave a complainant without options where the hedge falls outside the statutory scheme. Private negotiation, a boundary agreement recorded in writing, or a civil claim in nuisance where actual damage such as subsidence or blocked drainage can be proved are all still open. None of them is quick.

What you do have is the common law right to abate a nuisance by cutting back branches and roots that cross the boundary, up to the boundary line and no further. The cuttings remain your neighbour's property and should be offered back. That right does not let you reduce the height of a hedge on their side.

What qualifies as a high hedge

The Act defines the term narrowly, and councils reject complaints on the definition more often than on the merits.

• It must be a line of two or more trees or shrubs, so a single specimen does not qualify.
• It must be wholly or predominantly evergreen or semi-evergreen.
• It must rise more than two metres above ground level.
• It must act as a barrier to light or access, which a hedge with substantial gaps at the relevant height may not.

The hedge has to be on land owned or occupied by someone else, and the complainant must own or occupy domestic property affected by it. Roots, falling leaves, blocked gutters, loss of view and damage to drains are all outside the scheme.

Making the complaint

The council is the last step, not the first. You must show that you have taken all reasonable steps to settle the matter yourself, which in practice means a written approach to the hedge owner and a record of the reply or the silence that followed. Keep dated copies.

Councils charge a fee for a high hedges complaint, set locally and payable on submission. Some refund it if the complaint succeeds and some do not, so ask before paying. The officer will visit both properties, take measurements and assess the effect on the reasonable enjoyment of your property.

If the complaint succeeds the council issues a remedial notice specifying what must be done and by when. The notice cannot require the hedge to be reduced below two metres, and it cannot require removal of the hedge altogether. Ongoing maintenance to keep it at the stated height can be required, and the notice binds future owners of the land.

Protected trees and the limits on what can be ordered

A remedial notice cannot authorise work that other legislation prohibits. Where the hedge contains trees covered by a Tree Preservation Order, consent under the Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012 is still needed, and the council will consider the two questions together.

In a conservation area, six weeks written notice to the council is required before works to a tree with a stem diameter exceeding 75 millimetres measured at 1.5 metres from the ground. The council can respond by making a Tree Preservation Order, which changes the answer entirely.

This overlap explains why some complaints that look strong on light produce a modest outcome. An officer weighing an amenity hedge of mature yew in a conservation area against a loss of afternoon sun to a kitchen window will often land on a limited reduction rather than the two metre minimum. The assessment of the tree itself follows the same principles as a Tree Survey prepared for development.

Evidence the council will want

Bring the measurements and the specifics rather than the grievance. Useful material includes the hedge height taken from the base on the hedge owner's side, the distance from the hedge to your affected windows, the orientation of the affected elevation, and photographs taken at different times of day and in different seasons.

Note which rooms are affected and what they are used for. A living room or a bedroom carries more weight than a utility room, for the same reasons set out in the daylight work behind balconies and overhangs and the light they take from below. Where the loss is to a garden rather than a room, describe how the space is used and when.

The government's guidance on high hedges sets out an approach based on the height of the hedge relative to its distance from the affected windows, so a hedge close to the boundary of a small garden reaches the threshold at a lower height than one further away. Officers work to that approach, and a complaint framed around it is easier to decide.

Costs, appeals and what follows

Councils will not act where the complaint is really about something else. Loss of a view is not a ground, and neither is the inconvenience of leaf fall, birds or shading of a vegetable patch that sits outside the domestic curtilage. Frame the complaint around light to rooms and to the garden immediately serving the house.

Either party can appeal the council's decision to the Secretary of State, and appeals are handled by the Planning Inspectorate. The period for appealing is 28 days from the date of the notice or the decision letter, and it is strict.

Failure to comply with a remedial notice is a criminal offence, and the council can carry out the work itself and recover its costs from the hedge owner. That is the end point rather than the norm: most notices are complied with, sometimes after an appeal has trimmed what they require.

One honest caveat. The scheme deals with light and access, not with privacy, and a neighbour who reduces an evergreen screen may put a fence up instead. Where a screen is coming down and an extension or a window is going up in its place, the obscure glazing question covered in how councils word obscure glazing conditions tends to arrive next.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. If your own project needs the overshadowing question answered properly, an Overshadowing Study sets out the sun path analysis a council expects. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.