The Crime Prevention Website

As you might imagine, my website receives numerous requests for help during the year from people with a genuine concern for crime prevention. I try to do what I can, but there are limits, now that I have lost the influence I once had as a leading police crime prevention practitioner.

That being said, I am always happy to tell my readers about these requests if I think there is the possibility that something could be done.

The message below, reproduced with Mr Hill’s permission, ably describes a problem that some of you may be actually contending with as I write, namely a high screening hedge of Bamboo (rather than the usual Leylandii).

I should point out from the very start, before you read Mr Hill’s letter that we are talking about a long, continuous screening hedge of Bamboo, not a small patch or clump - I have a little in my ‘tropical’ garden at home. And we are talking about one that is so dense that it causes a nuisance in the same way as a Leylandii one would.

As it stands a neighbour may be forced to remove a hedge of Leylandii by the council only to replace it with one of Bamboo, which does not come under the High Hedges Act.

As a result of Mr Hill’s letter, I have updated my advice in my gardens section and will be dropping a line to my local MP. If you feel strongly about this matter then maybe you too could do something similar. Hedgeline, to which Mr Hill refers, is no longer an active campaign although they do maintain their very useful website. It looks like they would also welcome new blood to carry on their good cause and objectives.

Mr Hill’s letter:

Dear Calvin

Thank you for your continuing useful information to help prevent crime.

High dense hedges provide many opportunities for burglaries to be carried out unobserved. This problem has been reduced partially by the government introducing the High Hedge Act in 1995. However, there is a huge loophole in the Act, because it does not include Bamboo hedges.

Bamboo creates a very thick dense hedge which often grows rapidly to heights which obscure windows even on the second floor of houses creating an ideal opportunity for burglaries to be carried out unseen at much lower risk. [They can also invade a neighbour’s garden by sprouting, usually on the sunny side of the hedge]

The reason for this loophole is that the Act excludes Bamboo because it is a grass! Botanically this is absolutely correct but surely common sense should prevail by including it in the Act because Bamboo produces one of the thickest, highest, rapidly growing screening hedges possible.

Garden centres have taken full advantage of this loophole by promoting and selling species of Bamboo specifically advertised as ideal for screening hedges.

I have tried to have the Act amended to include Bamboo using various organisations, including Hedgeline, the RHS and my MP but sadly without success yet.

In this modern world of complex Acts of Parliament it is surely one of the simplest amendments possible just to include Bamboo in the Act.

Including Bamboo in the Act would produce improvements in two specific areas, not only a reduction in crime, but also the reduction in neighbourhood disputes, which have already caused not only many legal disputes and prison sentences but also violence and physical injury with one case resulting in death.

The Hedgeline website www.hedgeline.org cites many, many cases of problems with hedges.

Can you please use the strength of your organisation and your growing list of contacts to try and bring about this simple amendment to the Act?

Thanking you in advance 

Yours sincerely 

Robin Hill 

Hedgeline’s website: http://hedgeline.org/

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