Hedgerow and biodiversity experts are concerned that the road safety aspect of overgrown hedges in Donegal is ‘overplayed.’
The experts were pointing to a recently published 2016 road survey in counties Tipperary and Donegal that found less than 1% of roadside hedges posed a road safety risk.
Seasoned hedgelayer and hedgerow management expert Neil Foulkes also pointed to the survey as part of a review that “didn’t find enough hedgerows that were a problem to warrant a [full] project”.
This, Foulkes said, “suggests that safety problems caused by roadside hedges are nowhere near as substantial as some voices might indicate”.
In Donegal, the 2016 survey found, 1km of 366km of roads surveyed was tagged as presenting road safety concerns, indicating that hedges present a hazard on less than 1% of the total surveyed road length.
In Tipperary, 382.5km of roads were surveyed and only 2.1km were tagged.
“The study group presented by such a low percentage would be too small to allow an accurate and meaningful assessment of targeted local interventions to be undertaken,” the report said.
The seasonal ban on hedge cutting begins, officially, today, March 1, and ends on August 31.
Investigative website, Noteworthy, also discovered that many hedgerow and biodiversity specialists and environmental NGOs have raised concern about the level of hedge cutting across Ireland by private landowners or authorities, and the techniques used to do so.
To read the full ‘Noteworthy’ investigation into rich hedgerows cut back by local authorities during bird nesting season, click on the following link.
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