What’s holding up the traffic? JK is trimming her hedges
JK ROWLING has upset residents close to her Scottish mansion as gardening work at her home has caused traffic chaos.
Temporary four-way traffic lights have been set up to allow workmen to trim the 25ft-high Leylandii bushes surrounding the grounds of the Harry Potter author’s sprawling 17th-century property in Edinburgh.
Gardeners have apparently been working on the trees for several days, causing traffic jams and tailbacks in the streets around the 49-year-old writer’s home.
Angry residents said the lights were disrupting traffic flow. One said: ‘The hedges are obviously to stop people looking into her property. It’s just taking ages for them to cut the bush back. The gardeners have been here three days and have finished the front of the garden.
‘It’s chaos around there. The lights are taking too long to change, especially on the side roads. There are long queues tailing back from the lights.’
It is not the first time Miss Rowling has upset neighbours. In 2010 she submitted plans to build kennels in the grounds of her home. A neighbour lodged an objection on the grounds of excessive noise, but was overruled by planning chiefs, who fast-tracked the application. Three years ago the City of Edinburgh council gave the author the go-ahead to construct two Hogwarts-style treehouses in the garden of her home.
At her previous property in another area of Edinburgh, neighbours again protested at her plans to install security cameras.
Leylandii hedges grow around 3ft a year, forcing homeowners to trim them down annually. Miss Rowling is one of the world’s richest authors with an estimated fortune of £570million thanks to the Harry Potter series and the associated films. More than 400million copies of the books have been sold.