Should you get an ASBO for a messy garden?

As councils admit handing out record numbers of ‘petty’ penalties...

WATCH out, there’s a busybody about! Get out the Flymo, the shears, the loppers and the insecticide and pick up those nasty leaves in case you’re reported for... having a messy garden.

All it takes is a neighbourhood snitch and — abracadabra! — a council jobsworth could pop up on your doorstep and issue an ASBo. It seems Bossy Britain is becoming a nation of snitchers. New figures show that last year councils issued record numbers of ‘petty’ anti-social behaviour orders. That included hundreds targeting gardens for being ‘messy’. leaving waste in a garden was a separate category, so we’re not talking about discarded fridges here.

others attacked sitting on the pavement and feeding stray cats. An all-time high of 8,760 Community protection Notices (CpNs) were issued, which let wardens impose restrictions on those whose behaviour is considered ‘detrimental’.

The largest number of CpNs were for ‘eyesore’ gardens — including an artist issued with a notice by a council officer who objected to her private, ‘woodland- style’ garden. He told her: ‘All twigs, leaves, pieces of wood etc on the ground need to be removed; All bushes need to have lower branches removed so that one can clearly see under them; Any branches (which the lady had left for wildlife habitat) should be removed and disposed of; All bushes and trees should be radically pruned.’

What? We recently visited some neighbours whose garden couldn’t have been neater. It was as if the flowers were polished, standing like soldiers in neat rows. The hard work had to be admired, but I happen to like messy gardens where nature is allowed some freedom.

Keep away from my wild, unruly garden, where the moles have a field day and piles of fallen twigs brushed into piles make the best habitats for wildlife. The grass is often long. Some wouldn’t like it; others do. But it’s nobody’s business but our own.

Surely the question should be one of harm, not taste or inclination? If an eyesore garden was infested with rats or dangerous rubbish, that would be a public safety issue. Untrimmed shrubs are not.

Fylde Borough Council even issued an order to a bird lover who fed ‘wild birds’ once a day, saying the habit was ‘unreasonable and is having a detrimental effect on others’.

These curtain-twitching powers are totally unacceptable in a country that used to be free.

I like it when nature is allowed its freedom