Cork Councillors want roadside hedges cut earlier

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

Cork County Councillors are calling for the period during which roadside hedge-cutting is banned to be shortened for safety reasons with claims made that overgrown hedges and verges are damaging vehicles and causing accidents.

The Wildlife Act bans the cutting of hedges between March 1 and August 31 to protect wild birds during the nesting and breeding season.

However, there are a few exemptions such as when vegetation needs to be cut for road safety reasons. But this week’s Cork County Council meeting heard that landowners are wary of using the exemption for fear of being fined.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Finbarr Harrington proposed that the closed season be pulled back by a month so that hedge-cutting can commence on August 1 instead of September 1. He said the current system isn’t working for either road safety or biodiversity.

“If we look at what's happening at the moment is that we're prevented from cutting roadside hedges or verges from March to September. And then they grow onto the road and lorries and buses are contacting us every day. Mirrors are getting broken, windows are getting broken by branches of trees,” the West Cork Councillor said.

He said that when the local authority contacts landowners about overgrown hedges, “they panic a bit. And then they contact their local contractor and they ask them to go down and cut a stretch of road that they own by the road.

"And they tell them, cut it well back because they can't cut it again until next September. And the contractor goes down and literally hacks the hedge half to death. So, you have a part of the hedging that's dead basically.”

Cllr Harrington said that he was recently contacted by a bus operator whose bus was damaged when a tree hit the mirror, which then smashed the window. The damage cost 4,500 euros to repair.

Several Councillors echoed Cllr Harrington’s views. “I'm getting phone calls all the time from lorry drivers, tractor drivers, with mirrors being knocked off of tractors, knocked off of lorries. It's causing a lot of distress to people who are trying to stay in business,” Cllr Bernard Moynihan said.

“We have an awful lot of secondary and very minor roads, which are quite dangerous. When the hedges close in, some roads become single lane. There's no room to pass. And if you can't get those hedges cut, there's accidents waiting to happen. And I know it's important, the birds nesting and all that, but I think human lives are more important,” said Cllr Pat Hayes.

Cllr William O’Leary said that in some places school bus routes can’t travel on certain roads because of the level of vegetation while Cllr John Collins said that in his area a recent three-car collision was caused by overgrown grass verges impeding visibility.

Cllr Harrington called on the Council to write to the Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity, Christopher O'Sullivan, to ask for a pilot scheme in Cork to trial his proposal of earlier hedge-cutting. “If we maintain our hedges properly, it's better for biodiversity and it's also better for road users,” he said.