A COUPLE are battling two councils over ownership of a tree outside their home which has damaged a garden wall.

Sue and Len Brownfield said council workers planted the Ginko tree on a grass verge outside their home in Cedar Hall Gardens, Benfleet, more than 30 years ago.

Since then the 40ft tree, which can grow to 80ft, has fractured their garden wall twice.

After trying to get either Castle Point Council or Essex County Council to take responsibility, Mr and Mrs Brownfield finally resorted to taking the wall down as they could no longer afford the repairs.

Mrs Brownfield said: “It is unadopted land, a kind of no man’s land.

“The council planted the tree since we have lived here and it has grown extremely tall.

“Our main concern is the potential damage the roots can do to the house and its foundations.

“I fail to see how this can be the homeowner’s responsibility when we didn’t plant the tree. The council also maintains the grass verge – surely they can’t do one thing without the other?”

John Turner, of Temple Close, Hadleigh, has also had a run-in with the two councils over ownership of fir trees outside his bungalow, which have grown to twice the height of the bungalow.

Mr Turner, 70, said: “There are three fir trees in the close. The one outside my house is enormous. I got in touch with Castle Point Council who said it wasn’t theirs and the county council who sent someone down.

“They agreed it was too big. They said they own the grass verge but not the 3ft by 3ft bit of land this tree stands on. You couldn’t make it up. They said the land belongs to someone else and I could be taken to court if I cut it down.

“My solicitor searched the land registry and found the county council owns the entire verge.”

A county council spokesman said with regard to Cedar Hall Gardens: “The grass areas on which the trees were planted is not Highways land nor does Highways and therefore Essex County Council have any rights or duties regarding them.”

Regarding Temple Close, a spokesman said: “These are ‘boundary trees’ and therefore not the responsibility of Essex Highways. The resident is fully entitled to cut back any branches which overhang their property boundary.”