Leylandii hedge.

We inadvertently left a row of leylandiis to themselves in the garden of our house in France. Before we realised it they were twice the height of the house and about 12 foot wide at the base, they engulfed some apple trees and were all we could see from one bedroom of the house.

What it cost us to get them removed is something I would rather not think about.

I had about 10 leylandii in my garden when I bought this place, they were around 20 foot tall. I cut them down drastically and carted them off to the tip. Then just kept cutting them until they were just foot high stumps. I then called in a man with a wood chipper to take care of the stumps, it took me a while but I got rid of them. I then started on the roots which stretched right across the garden and under the patio. Thankfully the builders took over at that point to dig the foundations for my conservatory. It was hard work but not very expensive.

Isn't there a law that makes it possible, with the help of the local council, to force a neighbour to reduce the height of a high hedge if it is a nuisance?
I seem to remember hearing of something like that in recent years.

Ethelbags.
I quite like ours too. It was planted by the previous owner, is about 7 foot tall and, because our neighbours are a little way away, it does not cause any problems.
As you say it gives us protection from the wind and privacy from the road.
We have masses of birds that lives in it and now that we have fenced along the bottom few feet we are happy to see the rabbits running about under it. it also keeps the deer out and saves our trees from being nibbled.
The only downside is that it takes a bit of cutting, we have about 200 yards of it. Still the exercise is good for us.

Mamacaz - it could be that a neighbour can sue the owner of the tree for something - lack of light, roots spreading into their garden.
We have a rental property, and have had to have trees lopped 3 times for various reasons. Once for overgrown leylandii .Very expensive.

Cutting off the leyandii down to about 6ft made a big difference to our garden .

We actually cut down the overhanging bits of the neighbours leylandii , And then the neighbours took it down further.
I think you can remove the bits which were or are overhanging bits of your garden . If not come and visit me in prison.

Shysal, mine looked just like that. We were celebrating when the tree surgeons arrived.
I think next doors leylandii probably belonged to a number of previous houses.

Our next door neighbour planted the wretched things along our boundary about 45 years ago. He kept it under control whilst living there but successive owners never bothered. This resulted in a whopping wall of greenery which towered over our garden and house. The hedge reached an estimated 40ft in height until, eventually, after several threats, the latest owners had about 20ft taken off. It looks awful but at least we have more light in that part of the garden now.