Council has planted tree on my land.

Do good things, things to be celebrated, everhappen in your life, frank?

Re trees on borders. There was a sycamore tree (which is a kind of maple) just outside my parents front garden wall. When I was the age Minibags is now, I could swing up into it by standing on the wall and reaching the lower branches. Twenty years or so later the tree was not only blocking a lot of light from coming into the house, but it was knocking the wall down by undermining the foundations and by the ever-widening trunk leaning against it. It was also causing pavement upheaval. Eventually there would have been road upheaval as well.

My parents asked the council to come and deal with it. Council removed the tree, rebuilt that section of the wall and repaired the pavement.

Sycamores are not really suitable trees for streets, unless the streets are very wide and there is plenty of pavement width. Some of the small maples are entirely suitable. Even sycamores look lovely in autumn when they go yellow.

Tell us a happy story that doesn't involve money one day, frank

I wish someone would come and plant a tree in my garden!!

The original deeds to my house (1880s) include half the lane at the back of the house across the width of the house. I would guess the original deeds for the other eight houses in the street had the same agreement. There's no documentation in the enormous pack of legal documents and historical records that transfers ownership of this strip of cobbled back lane to the council. However, it is a public thoroughfare and there are parking restrictions – and clearly it no longer belongs to me in real life. Perhaps there are issues here whereby the Council thinks the particular bit of land belongs to it and HUNTERF thinks it belongs to him. Or maybe it is just a mistake.

Quite, jingl!

Where does anyone say they are anti-council?!

Just being logical perhaps?

ana why are you anti council?

Grumpa has suggested the most logical solution to sort the situation quickly.

I'm glad I don't work for Frank's council!

Ana - kettle calling pan.....

grumppa, it's something of an exaggeration to accuse the council of 'taking liberties'. More likely there has been a mistake. That's all - and the situation should be approached in the spirit of finding a solution - amicably, not adversarially.

So Frank goes out visiting the poor/sick/ill informed/ whatever and he comes home to find some bloody council workman has only gone and planted a tree in his garden or on his land, what next ? He goes to some meeting or other with some social workers and comes home to find a borstal or a prison built on the land opposite?

Surely this is some kind of wind up.

Grumpa

Well said. Applied logic.

Frank,

I share your concern about the council taking liberties with private land; the fact that the liberty at issue is a tree does not detract from the principle.

You have telephoned them. Why do you not now write to them enclosing a copy of the certificate to which you refer, and a plan showing the length of your front garden and the position of the tree within it? Point out that the longer they leave it in the wrong place, the harder, and hence the more costly, it will be to move, and the greater the potential damage to the tree which they could plant elsewhere. Enclose a photograph if you can.

You could go on to say that if it is not removed within, say a month, you will have it removed by professionals and delivered to their Parks Dept. and send them the bill, which, if is not settled, you will pursue in the Small Claims Court. Copy the letter to your ward councillor, and if you are feeling in a campaigning mood, to the local press.

But you must stay calm and reasonable and not threaten unrealistic rentals.

[Incidentally, I originally typed "yelephoned" at the start of the second paragraph: possibly a freudian slip, but the word does seem appropriate to certain types of phone call.]

And how would you like it, anno, if the council came and planted several molehills (with moles) in your lawn?

It could only happen to^Frank^!

It's a b****y mountain out of a b****y molehill.

And Frank does it again!

This is gonna go on for days!

And you lot will so enjoy it.

I love all the indignant what ifs by some posters - spiralling completely out of control. Frank be honest how tall is this tree and what is its girth

Calm down, folks! It seems as though the pro-Council bunglers posters are getting more aeriated than the pro- Franks!

Strange how such passion has been aroused - it's a piece of land which has been mistaken for a common verge - it's not as if they opened his gate and went inside his obvious boundary.It's a mistake for goodness sake - they haven't cut down his trees by mistake which would be awful or knocked down his garage. What do you want, to get the tree planters sacked?

Unpleasant? Vindictive!

I do not think I have posted on a Frank thread before!

I think j08 that Franks's proposed demands for tree rent could be seen as 'unpleasant'.

Exactly Ana.

As always with Frank's threads, you all seem to be determined to string it out.