Exclusion of deciduous trees from the 2013 High Hedges Act: EIR release
- Published
- 28 January 2025
- Directorate
- Safer Communities Directorate
- FOI reference
- EIR/202400440108
- Date received
- 9 November 2024
- Date responded
- 17 November 2024
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
Any reasoning that might exist for excluding deciduous trees from the provisions of the 2013 High Hedges Act in Scotland.
Response
The information you requested is provided below.
All relevant references for excluding deciduous trees from the High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013 are contained within the 2012 policy white paper (High Hedges (Scotland) Bill - Policy Memorandum (nrscotland.gov.uk)) which led to the Act. The paper was produced by Mark McDonald, the MSP who proposed the draft legislation.
Within the paper, paragraph 26 states: The Committee‘s scrutiny of my proposals specifically asked about my proposed definition of a high hedge and I made clear to the Committee that I wanted - a tightly defined Bill that concerns specifically high hedges ... [including] other vegetation, would run the risk of creating unwieldy legislation that was difficult to enforce. I advised the Committee that - I do not intend to include deciduous trees, because there are loopholes to do with whether trees that shed their leaves could be considered to form a constant barrier to light in the same way that evergreens and semi evergreens can.
Paragraphs 40 - 46, the section headed ‘Definition of a High Hedge’, goes into more detail explaining that stakeholders were supportive of the proposals including for excluding deciduous plants (and deciduous hedges). Paragraph 45 refers to the lobby group, Scothedge being supportive although some members were concerned about the elements relating to deciduous plants - the MSP responded to those points.
To help provide a complete picture, provided is the original public Consultation paper on high hedges and other nuisance vegetation (nrscotland.gov.uk), from 2009, on whether legislation was appropriate, and the consultation analysis paper below. Neither contained any reference to excluding deciduous trees. There has been no public consultation since.
The Act was reviewed twice leading to published Revised Guidance to Local Authorities 2016 and further revised guidance 2019. Neither contained any reference to excluding deciduous trees. In addition, and in-between, the Local Government and Communities Committee undertook a Postlegislative Scrutiny of the High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013 which reviewed the effectiveness of the Act in line with what Parliament intended. This contained no reference to excluding deciduous trees.
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