Appeal to incentivise Mayo landowners to cut roadside hedges

LANDOWNERS should be incentivised to cut the hedges along roadways.

That was the view expressed at a roads SPC which heard Mayo County Council had spent €186,000 on verge trimming up to mid-December of this year.

Director of services Tom Gilligan said the hedge-cutting forum recommended monthly updates from each municipal district and that contracts have a time-frame. The register of dangerous trees should also be updated regularly.

Councillor Johnny O'Malley said hedge-cutting is one of the most valuable services for people in rural areas – that and potholes. What other service to do they get for their property tax, he asked.

On incentives for farmers to cut hedges, he said the old REPS included hedge-cutting but the department got rid of it and brought in the new GLAS scheme – the 'most useless' scheme that did nothing for the farmer and little for the environment.

Councillor Damien Ryan agreed the department needed to encourage people to deal with overhanging trees and hedges.

Councillor Neil Cruise suggested that under GLAS there should be no planting of hedges along the road.

They needed to come up with a proper scheme. With an ageing population, there was no point sending out notices to a man or 70 or 80 to say he was responsible for a tree.

He wondered too about a pilot programme turning trees into a saleable commodity.

Head of roads Paul Dolan said some people do cut their own hedges and there had to be equity. People have responsibility to maintain their hedges.

They had to come up with an integrated approach to the issue. If farmers were cutting along the road, the council could help out with traffic management, for example.

The council, he pointed out, has a limited budget. And he explained how most local authorities don't do hedge-cutting at all.