Landowners have March 1st deadline to cut hedgerows
National groups are calling on all landowners to cut their hedgerows before 1st March to ensure they are not causing a potential serious road safety hazard. After 1st March and up until the end of August, it is an offence to cut hedgerows under the Wildlife Act 1976.
The RSA, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), and the County and City Management Association (CCMA) have issued the reminder. Last year, the NPWS made 31 prosecutions.
Overgrown hedgerows and roadside verges can result in road fatalities and serious injury collisions. They also pose difficulties for pedestrians and cyclists, and to trucks and agricultural vehicles carrying loads, especially on local rural roads, where they can impede sightlines at junctions or cause obstructions to road signs.
HEDGEROW HABITAT
In accordance to the Wildlife Act, the season when cutting hedgerows and verges is allowed, runs between the start of September and the end of February the following year. In Ireland, where there is relatively low cover of native woodland, hedges are of exceptional importance in providing food and shelter and habitats and corridors for maintaining wildlife diversity. This is particularly for birds, but also for other fauna and for wild plants. Wrens, dunnocks, robins, thrushes and willow warblers, as well as many rarer species, depend greatly on hedgerow habitats.
In general, untrimmed, thorned hedgerows containing shrubs such as blackthorn, whitethorn, holly, briars and brambles are favoured by birds as they provide food, shelter, nesting places and protection from predators during the breeding season.
It should also be noted that it is an offence under Section 22 of the Wildlife Act 1976 to wilfully destroy, injure, or mutilate the eggs or nest of a wild bird or to wilfully disturb a wild bird on or near a nest containing eggs or un-flown young birds at any time of the year.
SAFETY HAZARD
Only recently, at the January Dungarvan Lismore District Council meeting, councillors sought an update on hedge cutting on a stretch of road between Kilwatermoy Church and Moorehill Cross in Tallow, with fears for the safety of motorists due to uncut hedges.
Mr. Sam Waide, Chief Executive of the RSA called on all landowners across the country to remember the impact that overgrown hedgerows can have on other road users.
“They can cause a road safety hazard that could potentially cost the life of another member of your community. Road safety is a shared responsibility and it is important that landowners remain alert and take accountability for maintaining hedgerows. We will only make our roads a safer place if we all step up to the mark and take personal responsibility for what happens on the roads.”